This is Susie Lee for The Ferret & Dove Sanctuary, Inc. in Pensacola,
Florida. Due to our location, almost smack-between a Navy base and an
Air Force base, about half the ferrets that are turned in to us are
from military persons and families who are about to be transferred to
somewhere where they can not have pets of any kind. (This was about
the main reason why we've been holding onto and still trying to keep
open this Sanctuary, both for the sakes of the ferrets, and also so as
not to let our military folks down)...another percentage of turned-in
ferrets have been coming in from the police forces of our own and
several nearby counties from animals seized during drug raids or meth
lab raids, and such. Because we've been checked over and approved by
the authorities, have all our licensing, registration and other
paperwork all nice and proper and the ongoing backup-support of the
animal hospitals(such as if a ferret is ill, they go straight to the
animal hospital before anywhere else), they've brought us the ferrets
seized in their raids. The rest is as individual as the situations
folks get into.

In times of disaster, such as immediately after Hurricanes Ivan and
Dennis devastated entire neighborhoods, we were here for those who had
ferrets, (and rabbits and guinea pigs, at those times) but no homes to
keep them in. (we took in 37 ferrets after Hurricane Ivan, 28 after
Dennis, managed to get all the younger ones adopted out, at least).
Young folks buy ferrets without checking with their apartment managers
or landlords, then have to turn them in when they find they're about
to be evicted because the manager-landlord found out they "snuck in"
a pet; People get sick or die and then their pets have nowhere to go,
so the pets go to one shelter or another.

Sometimes a ferret will be found just plain wandering around who's
either gotten loose or been abandoned, like James Arness Dillon Ferret
who was found wandering namelessly and nearly naked of any fur in a
Wal-Mart parking lot and the folks working there knew about us and they
rescued him and turned him over to the Sanctuary. He's been here for
five months, now, grown back some of his hair, loves our Get-Well Soup
desperately, so we let him have a bowlful about five times a day, or
more if he wants more. Most of our Sanctuary's population are old and
hospice ferrets. We feel they have the right to their lives in comfort.

http://ferretanddovesanctuary.petfinder.com

[Posted in FML 5842]