I just got off the phone with two shelters who received calls from the
same two people I did.  There are two couples that I talked to personally
and also these other two shelters.
 
The first Couple, the man said his name was Brian and he called me
originally to surrender his ferret of 5 years because it was old and he
had swollen feet.  I encouraged him to seek medical attention for his
ferret but told him if he could not, then I would take the ferret in.
Well the man had set an appointment for today but then he called me last
night and says that he wanted a replacement or wanted me to pay him money
for his ferret.  I explained that we were non-profit and do not buy
ferrets.  The man said he was going to place an ad to sell his ferret and
then get another one because his wife didn't like the ferrets colorings
or the size.  The man abruptly hung up on me and not even 5 minutes
later, I got two phones calls from two different PA Shelters telling me
about the same couple and their experiences with him.
 
The next couple, had a deep accent (sounded Russian), I had a hard time
understanding him and his wife but they wanted a "nice" ferret.  I get a
lot of people telling me they wanted a nice ferret.  Well the man went on
to tell me about how awful it was to loose his last ferret because his
dog bite him.  Now I got a call about him from another shelter who said
she talked with a Russian Man who didn't want to bring his ferret with
pick out another because it had been bitten by his dog.  So it sounded
like the man with which they were referring to.  Well the man told me
that he was told by vet that with the eye injury, he was to put on
medicine and a bandaide to keep the eye in.  I started to feel a little
uncomfortable when I mentioned to the man that if the dog attacked his
last ferret, he would have to make revisions to allow the ferret to run
in a room or somewhere away from the dog.  Well the man got irritated and
told me that if his damn ferret that he had wasn't such a nasty little
thing it would have been killed by his dog.  I respectly told the
gentlemen that I did not feel comfortable with his living situation and
would have to decline adopting to him.  Well his last comment before
hanging up was that he would just keep calling the shelters until he got
one that would adopt to him.  The following day, I got a call from a
shelter in Burlington County, NJ who got my number from another shelter
and wanted to warn me about this guy.
 
These two couples are staying with PA and NJ shelters but I wanted to
warn everyone, they both seemed desperate.  I am glad that I was not
alone in declining these two couples.  Thank you for your time.
 
Sincerely,
Dawn Smith, Vice President
Legion of Superferrets National
[Posted in FML issue 4603]