Good Morning,

Anyone out there with any experience (good experience, hopefully) with
Prairie Dogs?

I have been contacted by a lady living in southern Mississippi who
bought a pair of Prairie Dogs from a Mississippi pet store last year.
Bought them as babies, of course. Surprise, surprise, her teenage son
who received the pair as a gift is no longer handling them and caring
for them. She says the Prairie Dogs have become somewhat difficult...
great... So, I get the contact.

I want to help them. The only experience I have had with the Prairie
Dogs is in my very early years when I strongly suggested that a local
"backyard breeder " of ferrets close down due to the fact that she was
keeping the ferrets outside in Mississippi weather and many of her
ferrets that she petted out were found to be positive for heart worms.
Including a very sick ferret that she surrendered to me, who later died
in my arms a few months later. Beautiful big black sable boy, too. Very
tragic. She also kept a pair of Prairie Dogs in her backyard. Since she
really seemed to care for the animals, I believed when she said she
would return them to the mound in Texas where she "rescued" them as
abandoned kids. The mound was located on her grandfather's property
and she visited him about every 6 months and was going to leave in
a few days anyway. I did do some follow up and she seemed genuine and
truthful about the return of the Prairie Dogs to Texas. I really did
not know what else to do, back then. I truly hope it was the right
thing to do for them.

I have checked the statutes and ordinances for my area and cannot find
anything that would prohibit me from taking them. Don't want to contact
the state or federal officials because they have been difficult to deal
with in the past. I frankly don't trust what they would tell me. These
folks quite often have these jobs because of an agenda and the issues
of legality and what is in the best interests of the animal sometimes
gets lost in "personal opinions." At least that is the experience I
have had with the officials here.

But these kids are domesticated and not from the wild. I don't want
them turned out into a forest area of Mississippi somewhere where
they will, most likely, die from an animal attack or a slow death of
starvation. I can take them in temporarily but I need a permanent
option for them.

Any advice or help in this situation would be most helpful.

Maren Qualls
Raisins From Heaven Ferret Rescue & Sanctuary
Hernando, MS

901.335.6536
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[Posted in FML 8165]