It is relatively easy for Petsmart to decide to get out of the ferret
selling business. They've been doing it for less than 4 years, and
never in more that a few dozen of their several hundreds of stores.

I believe the people who designed the program sincerely thought that
they could sell ferrets in a more humane fashion than is typically
done at other pet store chains. They designed special habitats, set
the neutering and shipping age at 8-9 weeks rather than 5-6, and wrote
long, detailed training manuals for staff.

But none of this could guarantee that store employees or even managers
would care, and Petsmart found that conditions at the breeders'
facilities were harder to control than they expected.

I don't think the mass breeding and selling of pets can ever truly be
humane.

The other pet store chains have apparently come to grips with the
compromises necessary to sell ferrets at a profit. Getting them to
change their minds will be far harder.

Linda Iroff
International Ferret Congress
http://www.ferretcongress.org

[Posted in FML 5888]