Monday morning at 9 am I got a call from a friend who had talked to
a woman in the pet store who had a sick ferret. By this time she
was concerned about "something sticking out of its stomach." Huh? A
Blockage? By 10 a m I met her. I had told her to bring whatever food
she was feeding. Upon seeing what was left of the ferret, a young male,
it was immediately obvious the ferret was starving and was almost dead.
What she felt was his os penis, he was so thin. She gave me the bag of
food.......8 in 1 Rabbit food, for rabbits, guinea pigs, chinchillas
and /other small animals/. She took this to mean it was also for
ferrets! I wisked the poor boy to the vet who tried everything but
he was on his way to the bridge, going to a better place.

I was so mad I wrote a nasty letter to 8 in 1 Pet Products. No, I
haven't heard anything back yet, and no, I don't like to use any of
their products either. I did suggest that they have labeling in other
languages as all labeling was in English. This woman's first language
is Spanish, although she did speak well in English. There are so many
Spanish speakers here and everywhere that, no matter what you think
about immigration, it is a fact that many of those who come here for a
better life do not read or speak English well if at all. I have yet to
find a ferret care book in Spanish. She is a prime type of person that
I wouldn't adopt to as long as she couldn't take the time to read about
ferret needs. I am going to try to visit her and see how the other
ferret is and see if she will feed it real ferret food or give it up to
Ferret Friends. We sure don't need any more as now we are the dumping
ground for all of Phoenix, it seems, and we keep getting more from
their Humane Society and some found ones. We are bursting at the seams
and there are only two homes to care for all of these. Between JoAnn
and myself and a few others with a couple of our fosters we have over
a hundred ferrets and she just brought home 9 more from Phoenix today.

Where is it going to stop?

Pardon my rant, I don't do it often but this really got to me.

Carol J. Owens
Ferret Friends, Inc.
Tucson AZ
www.ferretfriends.org/

[Posted in FML 6796]