>I would like to say that you are doing a wonderful thing by taking your
>ferret to school so kids can interact with it.  I am not trying to knock
>you I just have one question what do you do if a child is sick?  I know
>ferrets can catch human virus.  Keep up the good work.  -- Julie
 
I am soo glad you asked this!  It's a great question.  So I really have
to thank you for asking, cause I be others have wondered about this very
thing.  It would have been one of my first questions in someone elses
shoes.
 
When I first began school visits, I didn't let the children touch the
ferrets because of this very fear.  I saw pretty quickly that the visits
were useless other than to educate them about the animal itself.  I
thought to myself that Sean is exposed and carrying whatever the kids
have every day to our ferrets anyway let alone having my son bring home
whatever cooties from his school.  So I began engaging the children with
contact which turned out fantastic results.  I had some great teachers
in the past who would write me and tell me if a child had a flu or a
bad stomack virus or the like.  That was very considerate and much
appreciated.  As the years moved on, well you run into teachers that are
"too busy".  Was that tactful?  Yes?  Okay, so I would come in with the
ferrets to children with runny noses and the like, and I'd squirm.  There
are some levels of handicaps in children that just don't allow for them
to understand they can not touch the ferret because they can get it sick.
But since I had yet to have ferrets get sick..... i pushed the edge and
moved on anyway.
 
Heres the very strange thing that I just can not begin to understand.  My
ferrets only had a short "cold" (and yes it was like a cold and nothing
like the flu... i know I know, ferrets can't get colds) in the past two
years.  Nothing before that except when they were babies and we kept
introducing baby ferrets from ferret stores.  But since then nothing.
OKay we all know the crap that kids carry.  We all know that schools are
just breeding farms for the creeping crud.  So why hasn't this been a
concern at all?  it makes no sense.
 
The only thing I could imagine is that before I took the ferrets to
schools, they were exposed to minor bugs carried home from my children....
and it may have made the ferrets build up a little immunity?  Is that
possible?  I do not know.  It could be just plain dumb luck too.  But I
can assure everyone, the day I see more than a yearly cold/flu (which I
don't even have now), is the day I will have to consider other options in
this venture.... if not stop it all together.
 
Wolfy
 
Please visit:
http://www.geocities.com/wolfysluv/
for information on ferret deafness:
http://www.geocities.com/wolfysluv/deaf.html
[Posted in FML issue 3703]