John, your sentence
>And as far as "educating" general shelters about ferrets, as Sukie
>mentioned, forget it.
 
could be read in the WRONG way (i.e. not what I said) -- but only by
people who miss your punctuation -- as meaning that I said that we can
forget educating general shelters
  or
it could be read the right way: that I think that HOW to educate
general shelters is a worthwhile topic.
 
It has not been tried in many areas, but people on the FML through
the years have posted MIXED RESULTS when they have tried so it is
not impossible.  Hard.  Yes, and in some cases it is going to be as
frustrating and difficult as anyone could imagine.
 
This is exactly why it would be useful, rather than throw one's hands up
in the air, for those who are having problems to get specific (because
then the suggestions can be better tailored), and why it is especially
important for those who have had successes when others haven't to come
forward and discuss what worked, how much could be achieved, what is
still needed, etc.
 
Very few successes for ferrets have been easy ones.  The time frame from
start to getting them on the Compendium for Animal Rabies Prevention and
Control with the same recommended protections as cats and dogs was ten
years and involved many steps.  First a vaccine had to be found that was
effective enough for federal approval, and it needed to be safe enough
for the ferrets (not all were, and Dr. Judy Bell whose praises have been
sung here before herself decided to adopt those ferrets and provided them
with the care and love they needed, with the results that they were happy
and one turned out to even be an exceptionally long lived one if my
memory serves), and the vaccines had to be effective for at least a year
(again, not all were; one gave protection for only 6 months so that also
was removed from consideration).  The next step was also a long term and
costly one: the CDC needed to accrue enough data on how rabies strains
behave in ferrets for it to be known that they would be safe.  There
were some European studies from France and Germany that were encouraging,
and a past U.S. study had already shown that ferrets don't contract
rabies from eating diseased animals.  When the CDC work was done it took
extremely little time (I once knew the figure -- something like a few
months) for that knowledge to save more ferrets than had been used in all
of the studies combined.  Some of the earlier losses hurt in especially
tragic ways, such as Kodo who was killed enough though the man thought he
might just have a claw or cage scratch and was willing to do the shots,
or the ones we'd hear of where EXes from a couple would false report
biting incidents to cause deaths of the ferrets as way to inflict pain
on the person.
 
Legalization in some of the states and cities took pretty much as
long.  In fact, some of those allowed ferrets only after the above
accomplishment which owed a huge amount to the ferret community.
 
Most of the health advances have similarly been very hard won.
 
Now we are through the first 2 parts of an effort to improve federal
regulations for ferrets.  There were some tries before.  The first one
that I can think of was begun by Juliana if my memory serves.  Boy, was
she ever on the right track, but I don't think that back then many ferret
people realized it yet.  This the is sort of effort that we have always
known has to involves a lot of people and a lot of time going through
the required steps.  I think that it has to be at least 10 years since
Juliana first tried and there was some other tries in between.
 
Progress does not come easy all that often for ferrets.
 
Still, it has happened, and it will happen again.
 
It is important to not think that just because one person couldn't
achieve a given task that no one will.  That others have made headway
with educating some general shelters means that it can be done, but not
in the way being tried.  This is the sort of task -- like several of the
aforementioned ones -- where not everyone is ideal for each part of the
effort.  It may take sales skills, or a veterinary background.  It may
take print outs of materials written by vets, or vet texts.  It likely
will come down to dividing aspects of the work according to individual
skill sets.  Needing to find out what has worked and what is needed in a
given location is a world away from being impossible.
 
Hopefully, people will come forward with constructive information or
with ideas that perhaps are worth trying.  The list has been very quiet
in general, though.  I think that a large proportion of the people
normally here are away on vacation.
 
-- Sukie (not a vet, and not speaking for any of the below in my
private posts)
Recommended health resources to help ferrets and the people who love
them:
Ferret Health List
http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/ferrethealth
FHL Archives
http://ferrethealth.org/archive/
AFIP Ferret Pathology
http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html
Miamiferrets
http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/
International Ferret Congress Critical References
http://www.ferretcongress.org
[Posted in FML issue 5321]