Hi folks,
 
Quite a day yesterday.  I still haven't figured out yet which emotion is
stronger...anger over what happened or grief for those little kits who
won't even get a chance to experience the joy of life as a ferret.
 
I have run across other pet store personnel who refuse to believe that
animals returned to the distributor will be destroyed.  I don't know what
their mental block is against this.  After all, THEY are treating the
animals as "defective product" and returning it to the distributor,
proving that they don't care about the fact that it's a living, breathing
thing.  Why do they expect that the distributor will have more compassion
than they do??
 
A Petco boycott is called for here, IMO.  Not only a boycott, but a
strong statement from the ferret community telling them THIS is why
you're being boycotted.
 
Please ask friends and family NOT to patronize Petco.  Ask them to drop
an e-mail to Petco (or better yet, a letter, but I know it's hard to get
people to sit down and write letters unless it's a cause that directly
affects them) and let Petco know why they will not be shopping there.
 
As we all know, ferrets have no voice.  Those 10 little kits have NO ONE
to speak for them unless WE do.  If Petco gets no backlash from this, no
consumer dissatisfaction, no negative press, it's as though those 10
babies never mattered to anyone.
 
Well, they matter to me.  I never saw them, never held them, never met
them.  But they were 10 living, breathing little fuzzy people and the
store that claims it loves pets shipped them back to be euthanized.
 
Letters to the editor of the Keene Sentinel, Keene's newspaper, might get
them interested enough to do a story.  Their e-mail is
[log in to unmask]
 
I hope we can work together as a ferret community and express our outrage
and disapproval and maybe, just maybe, effect some change.  Rome wasn't
built in a day, but a steady and consistant voice from the ferret
community that lets Petco know that we are watching can eventually chip
away at these policies and practices that are so detrimental to animals.
 
Today I'm going to contact Petco by e-mail, phone, fax, and letter.  They
are going to hear from me!!!
 
-Heather in Massachusetts
 PetNO!!!!
[Posted in FML issue 3847]