I am not sure if it was recent, it in the past, but I was reading through
the FML (i've been reading archives so much my head is spinning) and came
across the problem of people bringing in sick ferrets and leaving, then
coming back for them a whie later once the shelter/rescue paid for their
medical issues.
 
Just unacceptable.  Detestable.
 
I was at work today (I'm a delivery driver... too much time to think!)
thinking about the problem.  The only thing that really stuck out was...
keep track of the drop offs.  Here's the idea real quick like.
 
Someone comes in to drop their ferret off.  Shelter says 'Ok, but we need
you to fill out this form, if you could, please'.  Form has 2 sections...
 
Section 1 - Owner - Has something to the effect of Name, License # and
            reason for drop off.
 
Section 2 - Animal - Basic things, like name and age... simple,
            non-complicated questions...
 
If anyone asks about the License #, make a shelter policy saying no
more than 4 animals may be dropped off by a non-cleared individual or
something and that the license # is used to track that, which in truth
is correct with the system i'm thinking of.
 
Then this info is inputed into a website database (secure, of course)
that I could contribute atleast the programing to (i'm not so good at
making things look nice, I just make sure they do their job!).  This way,
when someone comes to adopt a pet, you can 'cross referance' them, see
how many pets they've dropped off, see who they dropped off, whatnot.
It could be considered as a 'clearing' or 'screening' advantage.  Even
useful for far beyond ferrets.
 
What if all us animal lovers could come togeather and create an
association for tracking the sale/forfeture of even 2% of the pet
population...
 
Maybe it's wishful thinking, maybe it's foolish... but then, I was always
told to remember that some of the most common place things today started
with a wee little idea.
 
To all the ferts who have come and gone, for all of those still yet to
come, and because of the ones with us today... that's why we do what we
do... eh?
 
Jacob, Chance, Stinky and Shadow (meow!)
[Posted in FML issue 4223]