By Dearbhla Geraghty

Missing: Ferret! Hardly a notice you would expect to see coming through your letterbox, but that is exactly what greeted hundreds of householders in the Cappagh Road area on Friday morning.

Lithuanian couple, Agnes Puskoriene and Remis Puskorius, were due to celebrate six years of marriage on Saturday, but their plans were temporarily put on hold when one of their three pet ferrets, Adena, went missing.

Agnes, a photographer who rescues these unwanted and abandoned pets, and her husband found both Adena, a four year old albino ferret, and Oscar, a two year old ferret polecat mix, had got out of the house through a ventilation hole.

She grabbed a box of ‘ferret treats’ and went outside with their dog, Savannah, who managed to sniff Oscar’s scent and lead them to his hiding place – two hours later.

Unfortunately, the search for Adena was not so straightforward. Agnes printed posters and hundreds of flyers, and started dropping them around houses; she rang radio stations, contacted local papers, and drove to the various vets and pet shops in the city.

A difficult 24 hours passed without their “white fluff” in the house, but the search never stopped.

“That afternoon I printed another set of flyers asking people to check their sheds thoroughly, not forgetting any ventilation gaps they might have near the ground,” she recalls.

“An amazing lady, Yvonne, had organised a search party and looked around the estate and park while we were out. She called me and said that kids had seen some strange white animal around the apartments outside our estate.” Another lady reported spotting the animal running across the road towards the local park . . . but searches were fruitless.

As soon as the sun rose the following morning, on Sunday, Agnes and Remis formed a search party through placing invitations on Facebook, and handed out more flyers.

That night at 12.14am, they got a call from a neighbour who apologised for ringing so late. He had seen Adena outside his house.

“I don’t think I heard the rest, as I jumped, put one of my legs half into my trousers, hopped down into the office to Remis and we both bolted down the stairs and into the street,” she says.

They eventually located Adena – 48 hours after going missing – walking from the house next door into their own front garden, much to the delight of her ‘parents’, and siblings waiting at home.

Apart from being a bit dirty, Adena did not look like she had gone hungry, and was back to normal very quickly.

“I cannot thank everybody enough who helped me and offered me help – these people know who they are and without you I would have been in pieces!”

Agnes runs a community called Irish Ferrets, which occasionally rescues unwanted and abandoned ferrets, and tries to disperse the misconception that ferrets are wild animals, rather than pets.

Read more in today’s Connacht Sentinel.