Our little shelter has been so blessed by the Giving Tree in the past
years. Many of our residents are hospice kids and it's the only
attention they get from outside our walls. No one wants to see or adopt
the sick ones. Well, not main stream adopters anyway... it takes a very
special ferret person to purposely take on a hospice furkid. Some are
placed for the short time they have left but we know they are showered
with love & support from their special caregivers.

Qualifying for a place on the tree is monitored by the volunteers that
host, maintain, update & all the other duties that come with running it
each year. They should be showered with posts of "Thanks" instead of
"why did you do it this way?" or "you should yada-yada-yada". As stated
earlier, we are a small shelter and we won't be posting our allotted
number since we only have ten that would qualify as "shelter" kids this
year. I've emailed Melanee (Giving Tree) to see if the remaining 10
from our allotment could be donated to a larger shelter so they could
post more of their kids. I didn't specify any particular shelter as I
don't know each ones situation... I leave that up to the G.T. admins.

I did have a thought that may be could be launched next year. Perhaps
there could be a separate "branch" for the tree... or may be held a
different time of year and call it "The Hospice Wing", shaped like a
bird or angel wing & have feathers instead of branches. Folks could
send special goodies to the posted hospice kids or send donations to
their Veterinarian account, possibly gifted in memory of one of their
ferrets that have passed. And NO, I'm not volunteering... LOL!!!

It should be all about the ferrets after it's all said & done.

Respectfully,
Debbie Saunders
Director, Big Lick Ferret Shelter & Hospice
Roanoke, VA

http://www.biglickferretshelter.com
http://www.starcityferrets.mysite.com

"If you can't afford the Vet, you can't afford the pet."

[Posted in FML 7220]