Ok, here's another perspective.  I don't ask anyone to like it, if they
don't want to, but to consider it.
 
Everyone's situation has the potential to change without warning.
Sometimes it isn't as dramatic as Kim Schilling's example, but sometimes
even the less dramatic changes can be pretty important.
 
My first ferret, Mira, came home with my now-ex-husband without my
permission.  I fell in love right away, added Cael two months later and
adopted Booboo on Mira's first birthday.  Booboo died from surgical
complications after not too long with us, and we added my little Tasha.
This was our happy family.  When my husband and I split up, I kept the
ferts.  I made less money than him, but the overall care they would
receive with my husband was unacceptable, so I fought tooth and nail,
and he used the ferts as leverage to get some of our valuable belongings
in the separation.  But I was still doing all right.
 
I had a roommate who loved the little guys and helped out with money
and everything.  We added Robin and rescued Nietzsche, lost Cael to
kidney failure, and adopted O'Dell and my roommate, after a year he was
a boyfriend, got Samurai.  And we were still doing Ok.  Cael's illness
put us out a bit, but we bounced back with tax refunds and the help of
a woman from this list, put more money away and were doing fine.
Nietzsche wasn't well, and we were preparing for possible surgery,
but our vet recommended against it, so our stash sat, waiting for an
emergency.  A year went by, with everyone happy and reasonably healthy.
 
My ex and I had been separated for over 2 years, but I had only just
filed for divorce, because other things had taken monetary priority.
(That's right, I had a stash of $$ set back for the ferrets, and didn't
use that money to file for divorce.) I don't know how or why it happened,
but my roommate turned boyfriend had become the love of my life, suddenly
and without any warning.  We were getting by, the divorce was proceding,
the ferts were happy, and so were we.  The bomb dropped somewhere in
between my filing the divorce papers and actually going to court to make
it final.  The bomb was me being pregnant.  We weren't expecting it, had
been trying to avoid it and it certainly didn't happen at an opportune
time.
 
We felt we should buy a house, a choice I don't regret.  That money we
had put away had to be spent.  On the house, on me, on the ferts regular
checkups, on some medical care, on things the baby would need when it
arrived... And then my little Tasha, my light, got sick, and we went to
the vet, and she got sicker and we went back, and sicker and back again,
and then she stayed there over night, only she never came home again.
We were in debt to the vet for her care, I was 6 months pregnant and was
quite honestly thrown into a serious bout of prenatal depression.  My
happy little world was shattered by Tasha's death, and so was my bank
account.  I am a happy mother and wife, and generally a happy person, but
I will readily admit I have never been the same since the day Tasha died.
 
We started saving up again, but it's hard to do when you are expecting a
child, and even harder once the baby gets there.  We owed a fair chunk
for her and my medical care after my health insurance covered what they
would.  We've struggled to get back on our feet ever since.  We've
managed, but never very well.  Nietzsche died not long after Tasha, and
Robin, Mira and O'Dell joined them.  They all got medical attention, but
we struggled to pay for it, and I fear that life with a new baby, trying
to find a way to share time and space with everyone who needed it, may
have been more damaging than the money factor.  (I'm not Dr. Who, after
all.)
 
In the end, Samurai is a happy, healthy, but lonely ferret.  We will not
be adding to our business because our pocketbooks and our lifestyle can
no longer support it.  Samurai isn't neglected, but I have felt more than
once over the last two years that he, and the others, would have been
better off if I HAD found them another home.  I couldn't do it, because I
loved them.  It hasn't been easy on any of us, not the least of which is
the ferrets, and I feel guilty about it.  I have done everything I could
for them, and for my daughter, and my house and my husband and sometimes
even myself, but I had to make priorities, and my daughter came first,
sometimes to the detriment of other things, myself included.  And even
though I didn't dump my ferrets, and I did everything I could for them,
I sometimes feel I did NOT act responsibly.
 
And the moral of my story: Sometimes it is selfish to give up a ferret.
To "dump" them.  Sometimes, I think, it is selfish not to.
 
Melissa Rotert
Samurai the Lone Warrior
Missing the Weasel Squad at the Bridge.
[Posted in FML issue 4455]