There are many reasons people descent ferrets, that have nothing to do
with being barbaric.  Descenting is sometimes necessary depending on the
individual ferret, and criticizing someone who simply can't stand the
smell is not productive.  People have different tolerance levels for
smells, particularly ones that can be that foul.
 
I have had seven personal ferrets.  Two came to me with scent glands.
For varying reasons, both had to have their glands removed, and I wish I
had done it during the spay/neuter surgery -- it would have been less
traumatic.
 
Mishka was purchased from a private breeder.  He was always an extremely
timid ferret, and would blow his scent glands every time he heard an
unexpected noise, made by either me or the other ferrets, or in an
adjoining apartment.  When he was up and alert, this could happen as
often as every 5 or 10 minutes.  Some times the smell would be so strong,
it would cause my eyes to sting, and it would be hard to breathe.
Everyone said that the smell would get better about 6 months after he was
neutered.  It didn't.  I had him descented when he was two years old.
Yes, it was traumatic for him (they cauterized the incisions, and they
kept breaking open when he'd move, which was painful for him), and yes,
I wish there had been some other way to manage the smell, but there
simply wasn't.
 
Brenna came intact through a rescue situation.  I had her spayed when she
was six months old, was undecided about having her descented.  At the
last minute, I told the receptionist to tell the vet to go ahead and
descent her along with the spay, but for some reason, she didn't do that.
So eighteen months later, Brenna's anal glands got impacted.  She had to
endure two solid months of getting her anal glands expressed every two
weeks, being on antibiotics (which she hated), and generally going
through a lot of pain and misery.  God only knows how long they hurt her
before I noticed she was licking her rear more than ususal and took her
in.  I was lucky enough to live near the "anal gland queen" vet(anybody
needing a reference, let me know), and thanks to some torbuterol for the
three days following surgery, she seemed to come through with minimal
discomfort, although she does tend to hold her tail at an angle now.  for
the record, i always thought that Brenna smelled quite nice with her
scent glands (except for her little bottom), and boy, did she use them!
But, her gland secretions were not as pungent as Mishka's, and had they
not gotten impacted, i would have lived with her poufing.
 
Maybe I just have had bad luck, but there are a lot of reasons that those
glands need to come out.  If the owner doesn't know what to look for, and
the impaction is not dealt with in a timely manner, the glands can
eventually burst inside the ferret.  The walls of the glands can also
develop tumors.  If the smell doesn't bother the owner, great, fine,
leave them in.  If the owner needs to have them removed for odor reasons,
well, that doesn't mean the person is a bad owner -- sometimes, the
ferret for whatever reason, just poufs way more often than normal, or the
smell is particularly bad for some reason.  It is unfair to insinuate
that the person is unfit to own ferrets without knowing the specifics of
the situation.
 
Ok, off the box now.
Melissa
[Posted in FML issue 3935]