>>Of course, the person quite possibly was an idiot..  But it seems strange
>>to me a pet store employee would try so hard to *stop* people buying
>>these ferrets.  It seems more plausable this person didn't want these
>>ferrets sold for a good reason.
 
>Reet, that's a thought that occurred to me as well.  If the person at the
>pet store had simply spouted off the usual negative ferret stereotypes, I
>would have just suspected he was an idiot.  But the claim that the ferrets
>in the store had been bred with minks was a bit over the top.  I suspect
>that he was intentionally trying to discourage people from buying those
>ferrets.
>
>While I do think that perhaps this fellow meant well, I also think he was
>a bit misguided.  The people who posted the original story (and I'm sorry,
>but I can't remember your names) were pretending to be ferret-ignorant,
>but that's no excuse for the pet store person to discourage them from
>buying a ferret.  True, he didn't know that they were more knowledgeable
>than they were letting on, but least by asking questions they were showing
>that they were willing to find out more.
>
>I wonder if perhaps this fellow (or one of his friends) wanted to buy the
>ferrets himself, so he was doing all he could to keep anyone else from
>buying them.  Or he may have really been an idiot.  Who knows?
 
My wife and I were the original posterson the FML.  I need to clarify some
things that didn't come across well.  First off he knew we already had at
least one ferret because we told him this in the beginning when we wanted
to hold one of the babies.  The fellow just didn't know that we weren't
novices.  I guess he thought he was really getting over on us, I really
don't know.  What I do know is he had total contempt for those ferrets.  At
one point he said " I wish i could just send them all back they are so much
trouble,this is the worst bunch we have ever had".  At this point we wanted
to buy the one my wife was holding.  The price was $99.99 plus 8% tax.  I
only had an even 100 in my pocket.  It was strange, he wouldnt knock off
the 8 bucks but the whole time he kept bitching that he wanted to just be
rid of them.  While this went on he was trying to clean the poop out of the
corners of the cage and they would all (14 of them) come looking to see
what was up as ferrets do.  He would take the scoop and shove them all back
away and say loudly " GO AWAY".  This happened at least four or five times.
 
We know what we saw and it left us just speechless at the time.  He is a
person that does NOT like ferrets or dealing with them.  He even remarked
"I wish they would quit sending us ferrets.  They are nothing but TROUBLE".
We left the store about this time and were going to get the other 8 bucks
to rescue the one BEW male.  But after we thought about it, several looked
so "ill" i was afraid that he may bring home a disease into my group.
Sadly to say we have not been back.
 
The whole ordeal left us with a very bad taste in our mouth and left us
very upset at seeing such treatment.
 
I contacted my local ferret shelter and they are checking into it.  Also my
wife is trying to get a holt of the Petco Vise president to tell her about
the situation.
 
This man does NOT need to be in charge of ferrets or even around them.  He
has total disdain for them.  Make no mistake, he was and still is an IDIOT.
Maybe he just likes to play games, I don't know.  But we speak out, this
time he chose the wrong people to "play" his games with.
 
Still upset in Alabama
 
Weezzer & Majyk
 & the rug monsters ( Peppin, Sheeba, and little Grendel)
[Posted in FML issue 3132]