While my husband and I are not a shelter, I'm known as the ferret lady at
the local pet shops.  (I only have 14 now, I can't imagine why they would
call me that!).  I've been keeping my 21 year old son's ferret at my house
since about a month after he bought her because she makes his apt.  smell
(no problem there, we love her and that's what lead to our rescue).  I've
been trying to talk my son out of his ferret (Cosett) and told him I would
buy him a nice parakeet with cage, toys and food to trade him for his
ferret.  He wasn't sure that he wanted to do that so we went to look at the
pet shop where he had purchased Cosett.  First thing he heads of over to the
ferret cage, no way I told him, you don't want Cosett at your house and I
won't trade you a ferret for a ferret.  Then we both noticed a rather large
ferret in the hands of one of the employees.  I walked over to pet him,
(beautiful badger face and sterling body) and the employee said don't pet
him he bites.  I'm not afraid of being bitten so I petted him anyway.  He
let me and she was surprised, he didn't bite.  Then she noticed, "oh you're
the ferret lady".  I asked to hold him and she let me, he was very squirmy
but let me pet him.  She said he had just been returned and they got a
little bit of information from the people but then the employees were
distracted and the people left with the employee holding him.  They just
wanted to give him back.  They said they had bought him there in April but
that he bit and they couldn't keep him.  My son also bought Cosett there in
April and he looks alot like her so we decided they are probably brother and
sister.  Anyway the employees were wondering what they could do with him
because he had already bitten two of them and they didn't feel they could
resell him.  I offered to take him and they accepted.  I'm proud to say that
after two weeks of socializing with us and our other 13 ferrets he no longer
bites.
 
We figure he had never been out of his cage because they were afraid of him
so he was never taught how to socialize.  They feed him well, he was fat and
beautiful, and yes, we had our vet look at him and give him his distemper
shot before he was allowed to mingle with rest of our fuzzy kids.  He has
decided that he loves people and hugs and will follow you around until he
gets one.  He still nips a bit hard when playing, but not drawing blood
anymore, he's learning.  I never raised my voice to him, I never hit his
nose, I only treated him with love and gentleness and he responded in kind.
We are very attached to him and know it would be too difficult to be a
shelter and give away our kids (fuzzy ones, not natural ones, altho' it has
been a thought from time to time).
 
We just wanted to share a happy ending.  Oh yeah, the first time we let him
out of the cage and he was finished being cautious and curious, he danced
the most wonder dance of joy I've ever seen and ours love to dance the dance
of joy (or wardancing) but his was from the sheer joy of being free from the
cage for the first time in about 5 months.  They were 11 weeks old when
purchased from the store in April.
 
Best wishs for all the sick fuzzies and their pets who worry so much about
them.
 
We changed from msn to sprynet (msn was too expensive) and got to pick out
our own e-mail name.  Love it!!
 
Vicky
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[Posted in FML issue 1653]