I'd like to respond to the comments regarding where will we get our
ferrets, don't blame the stores, etc. But before I address those
concerns ...

I've been sheltering ferrets now for over 20 years. For part of that
time I worked with another huge, local, shelter which took in an
average of 400 ferrets a year, every year, their last 4 years.
The years before were still triple digit. I've worked with very
knowledgeable vets, I've trained vets - yes I know how that sounds but
its truth not conceit. For the last 13 years I have worked for one of
the major pet food companies. As much as I hate ALL puppy mill places,
and that applies to animals other than just dogs, I go where my boss
sends me. Some times I stomp my feet, complain and whine, but I get
paid to go where I'm sent and some one has to pay our vet bills. I
can't afford to be unemployed. Bottom line here, I know a thing or 3
about all 3, Ferrets and sheltering, and those accursed puppy mill
stores.

The idea of not being able to find ferrets if the big retailers stopped
carrying them is as uninformed as the one that if the big guys quit
selling then backyard breeders will pop up. Both of those are as
uninformed as the presumption that the retailers have little to do with
the abundance of shelter ferrets and it's the public's fault for being
uninformed. Neither are the ideas that ferrets make money so selling
them can't be stopped nor half a dozen other often quoted ideas
legitimate.

I am not trying to belittle anyone, and no one knows like a shelter
Mom what an impact proper education would make, but I'd like to point
out a single example that disproves almost all of the nay sayers:
Large Parrots.

Both PetsMart, PetCo and the vast number of pet stores used to carry
the large parrots - Macaws, Cockatoos, etc. The bird shelters are STILL
buried, their charges often have hundred year life spans, but the Big
2, PetsMart and PetCo, and most of the smaller pet stores as well, no
longer sell them. And as for upping the price of the ferrets to try
to afford them some protection? Ha! Ever price one of those birds and
they still sell and still wind up in shelters.

There are other complications with the big birds our ferrets don't
share, and other differences, some of them drastic, but the point is
the bird community came together and said, 'look, there are BIG
problems here', took steps to reduce their availability in the large
retailers and got it done. Can you still buy a Macaw? Absolutely. Can
you walk into a puppy mill store with a credit card and walk out with
one on a whim? Nope. Are the bird shelter operators glad that came to
an end? Don't even have to answer that one.

So what's the bottom line. The bottom line is it will take a lot more
than me hating them, refusing to do business with them (I may have
to work there, but I don't have to shop there) and making my opinion
known. To start it will take exactly what is being tried by one
shelter - facts and figures. It will take being able to prove on a
national scale there is a problem, a serious problem. That it's not
just costing us shelter folks money, to say nothing of the time and
heartache, but it costs the public money (taxes paid to municipal
'shelters'), is a serious threat to the welfare of the species as a
whole (some of those big birds are on the endangered and threatened
lists) and what ever else the bird community did, because they got
it done.

But please. Don't fall back on platitudes. They're part of the problem.

Brenda, Momma to the FurpeopleWeyr

[Posted in FML 7991]