The Ferret Paradigm Podcast – Click here for the direct link or find it on your favourite podcasting app.
Hi. Welcome to the Ferret Paradigm podcast. I’m your host, Nyree, and the Ferret Paradigm is a podcast about everything Ferret or Mustelid. Yep, the furry noodles.
This is actually my ferret podcast Redux, Ferret podcast, take two. I had a podcast called Stolen Our Hearts, which I love doing. I had 40 episodes and it was about ferrets and other exotic pets. It was suggested to me that I split the podcast into two podcasts, one about ferrets and one about exotic pets and other animals that people love to make it easier to listen to what you care about most, so you don’t have to sit through a bunch of stuff about rabbits when you want to hear about ferrets. The other podcast is called Fauna Paradigm and I’ll be linking that one in the show notes. I’m keeping the name Stolen Our Hearts for my business endeavours and my social media. In this mini episode. I really just wanted to talk about what I’m doing and what’s coming up. I don’t want to waste all the awesome episodes I’ve already done, so I’m going to be taking them, maybe editing them a bit and reposting them on the ferret paradigm. Obviously just the ferret related podcast episodes. After that, you’ll be having new content. So I will be posting the old content at a faster rate than I will be the newer content. If you’ve got ideas for newer content, please let me know. I’m always happy to hear suggestions. And if you’ve come over from Stolen Our Hearts, please resubscribe. I would really appreciate that too.
So, yeah, a little bit about me. I’m Nyree My name is unusual, but there are a few of us out there. If you can’t tell, I’m Australian and I come from a large and low density population state called South Australia. I live with my husband, a Chihuahua called Freyja, and three ferrets whose names are Trixie, Marie and Wilbur, known as Winnie. At least at the moment, I’ve got three ferrets. I am pushing for a fourth one, but I really don’t think I’m going to get that. You might hear them occasionally in the background because she’s demonstrating for us right now. Yeah, you might hear them around because when I’m podcasting, it is free room time and Freyja does what she wants. Actually, for a while, she’s really not very happy. It’s just she can hear something outside and she thinks it might be… She is the sweetest little Chihuahua ever. You would not believe it based on the stereotypes of chihuahuas.
I’ve had ferrets for, I think, eight years now. I was trying to think back before exactly how long ago it was. Eight or nine years, I’m pretty sure. Yeah, I’ve had them for ages. Absolutely love them. Obviously quite obsessed. I’ve had quite a few ferrets in the past as well. I spend a lot of time reading about them and I enjoy working with rescues when I can. I’m not a ferret expert in quotes there, but I care about them a lot, very happy to do research, and I’m always learning, I think I’ve always loved ferrets since I even heard about what they were. And before that I loved otters and meerkats. Not that meerkats are mustelids, but they remind me of ferrets. And I also loved Weasels. And I was just fascinated by the heffalumps and woozels in the old Winne the Poo episodes. And I was quite obsessed with I am Weasel from that I R Baboon, I Am Weasel show from the 90s. So when I got the chance to first meet a ferret and then actually live with a ferret, I just jumped at the opportunity.
I actually met my first ferret when I was visiting at my grandparents house. I was looking out the window and there was a girl or a young woman walking along and she had a leash and the leash was leading down into what looked like nothing. And I was like, what on earth is she walking? And then there’s little ferret face popped out from the gutter. I was like, oh my gosh, it’s a ferret. So obviously I knew what a ferret was, but I don’t remember the first time I was ever educated on what a ferret is, unfortunately. But I just basically ran out the door and accosted this young woman and I was like, hello, can I pet your ferret? So I kneeled down and the ferret climbed on me and she warned me, she warned me he could be a bit nippy. And they leaned up and nipped me on the chin. Obviously it was an ouch, but I wasn’t grumpy at the ferret at all. And I understood that sort of as a badge of honour. I was like, well, how many people have been bitten by a ferret? Yeah, well, now, as a ferret owner, I know that that is not at all uncommon, but it wasn’t like many people saw ferrets. So I was like, yes, I got this little cut from a ferret on the weekend. I was very proud.
And then later on, my awesome roommate, I don’t know why, I just called her roommate, I’m not American, my awesome housemate. She asked me if she could get a pet and I said, yes, of course. And so would you prefer if I got a rabbit or a ferret? And I was so excited and immediately said, Ferret, please. And she brought home this teeny tiny little bundle of a baby, probably too young to leave its mother, and I just fell in love with them. So whenever my housemate was at work or out for a night, I’d be playing with that ferret. And she just pulled me and I loved her so much and took her with permission to various rescue events. And I would hold her and let people pat her and educate them on what ferrets are. It was just such a special time and I was so sad when the house they moved out and of course took the ferret with her. Yes, I miss that girl, but she’s passed on now. But I still consider her to be my first ferret, even though I didn’t own her. The first ferret I loved.
And then I got into rescuing ferrets and adopting them from various rescues. So yeah, that’s my ferreting history. I’ve had ten ferrets now, including my housemates ferret, and I’ve helped some rescues as well along the way. I’m very passionate about advocating for ferrets and also educating their owners. I actually work in education with children, but basically I just like teaching. I like learning, I like being with people, I like learning with people. I consider myself to be a lifelong learner. You might be interested to know what I do in my free time, see if we match up. Shouldn’t affect the advice I give too much, but it might affect some of the little comments I make along the way. I consider myself to be quite a geek, old fashioned term, I know, nowadays, but the old not quite fitting in with the popular crowd, liking things that I like just because I like them.
Yeah, so some of the things I like are games. I’m obsessed with games. Computer board, party games. It’s just not like sports. Sports do not count as a game for me. I’m not coordinated enough. I absolutely love crafts and making things. I love dollhouse miniatures. I love coming up with business ideas. I will give basically any craft a try and then cycle through a whole bunch of different crafts depending on how I feel at the time. I love reading. I love reading in the bath particularly. I can sit in there for hours just reading a book. I absolutely love spending time with children, but I don’t want to spend time with them in my house. 24/7, so my pets are my kids. I listen to a lot of podcasts and I have been doing so since long before I go into podcasting. I quite enjoy writing though the novels I started as a child never came about. I also love history and I love just being on the internet.
You probably definitely can’t tell this one, but it was more obvious in my really early episodes and it’s something that I feel I would like to disclose because I feel that disclosing this might give some help to other people who might be in a similar situation, is that I have generalized anxiety disorder. I have major depression and a lot of executive dysfunction disorder. And I’m also very introverted, which is weird because I also like taking a leadership role, but then I will go home and crash for days on end because I’ve socialized too much, so it’s a tricky balance. One of the reasons why I have been working on this podcast is that it is helping me with my public speaking skills, my bravery my willingness to put myself out there, talk to new people, and I have to say I’m really enjoying it. I would highly recommend to anyone in the old days, I could barely get two words out before having to retake, and now I can sort of ramble on for quite a while about having to press pause and redo. Yeah, I’ve been struggling with mental health for pretty much all of my life, I would say, looking back, but I’ve been particularly working on it varies with high intensity for the past ten years and I think it’s going pretty well.
I’ve come to the point that I would really like to make something that I love being my own personal business rather than being an employee. And so I would love to do some ferret mentoring. So if you need some help with your ferrets or knowledge about ferrets, check out some of the links in the show notes.
I have a membership program now and I’m hoping to make that into a small business. So technically I’ve got three ferrets. So already a small business owner.
What can you expect from this podcast? Well, puns, I make awkward jokes, I’m sorry, but really I’d like to be talking about anything to do with ferrets or other muscle loads such as badges and otters and weasels of all sorts and shapes and descriptions, including wolverines and leased weasels. Anything I can get my hands on to talk about. I love talking about ferret care and helping new fare at owners and more experienced, fair owners with improving their ferrets lives. I really advocate for the best care that I can possibly think of when I’m talking to people. I love talking with people about their ferret experiences. I love hearing stories, both good and bad, about ferret experiences that we can learn from or enjoy. And so some of the interviews I’ll have will be about that sort of thing. I want to talk about ferrets of our past, like obituaries and in story form. I like sharing ferret related news and gossip, ferret sightings and pop culture, so Kimmy Schmidt, for example, and sharing ferret related businesses or products that could be of interest. I also want to talk about things that might be useful or relevant to you as a ferret fan or pet owner. What I talk about in the podcast is sort of a taste of what I can help you with one on one or in a group as part of my membership program. But the podcast itself is also a high priority to me.
I really enjoy sharing what I know with people, which is why I’m hoping you’ll share this podcast around.
Would you like to be a guest on this podcast? You have something that you think my listeners might be interested in? Well, send me a message and tell me why you think you’d be good on this podcast. And if we match up, interests and beliefs match up then I would consider having you on as a guest.
How to be a good fan of the podcast? Well, my podcast website is Stolenourhearts.com. I don’t really want to get rid of that name yet. I am really quite attached to it and I’ll add any other businesses I want in the future to that name as well. So yes, Stolenourhearts.com the website is really basic right now, especially with the transition that I’m doing. But it does have the minimum, at least the links to my various social media and also the membership program and to the episodes of the podcast.
Every now and then I have a fun pet chat. I’m calling it where we all get online together and we just talk pets live. So I’ve had some amazing conversations with people doing that. It’s just really fun. And we get to brag and share photos of our pets and all the real pets if possible, and just chat. I really like it. So that’s one really good way to be a fan. So come find me on social media. I’m on Instagram, Facebook and Tik tok now as stolenourheartspodcast.
And I’ve got a free Facebook group called Stolen our hearts ferret and exotic pets group. So I’ll be combining both fauna paradigm and ferret paradigm together for that group and we can all just chat together. I think that will be nicer and I’d love for you to join. So if you join that one, you get notifications about the fun pet chat.
You can see my mailing list links and everything. I’ve got some freebies in that and you can also ask me questions and request topics for future episodes. Yeah. So if you like what I’m doing to advocate for and help Ferrets, please let your feet friends, your ferret fan friends know and pass on my link. I would really appreciate you subscribing to this podcast and leave me reviews. I’m very friendly. Come and say hi.