To Rascal, mom,
Thieffie,Miji,Diamond,Mocoa,Cola,Thumper,Star,
Shelby,Shasta,Ceazar,Sa'ce,&Zazu
 
At the request of tle, I will share my experience.  I hope it helps someone,
somewhere.
 
First, let me tell you that I DO NOT believe your ferret has distemper.  I
hope and pray you are able to find alternative care, and I'm sure you are
getting similar messages from others.
 
On March 4, I adopted two playful 1 1/2 year old males and happily brought
them into my home.  They had been at the Lawrence Humane Society for a
month, and were our first wonderful, loving ferret friends.
 
Within 5 days, Cupid was lethargic.  He would come out during play time and
immediately curl up in a warm laundry basket instead of bouncing around like
his "brother" and playing.  2 days later, he had discharge from his eye, the
next day his ear was also oozing.  He stopped eating and drinking, and went
to the vet, who put him on antibiotics and kept him overnight.
 
He responded well to the therapy, and our hopeful vet sent him home with an
eye salve.  She was afraid it was distemper, but willing to hope with us we
were looking at a virus.  Dogs with distemper have often been documented
responding well to the treatment (often called transition), but this hadn't
been seen in ferrets before, so we were excited to bring him home.  36 hours
later, Cupid was having difficulty breathing, and was worse than ever.  Both
eyes were sealed shut, and he was disoriented and nearly unresponsive.  His
paws were crusty and swollen.
 
We made the painful decision to have Cupid put down, because it was obvious
he did indeed have distemper.  Our shots the day we brought our fuzzies home
apparently were just in time to save Bandits life, but Cupid died only two
weeks after coming home.  We are still very sad that this young, loving
creature was needlessly exposed out of ignorance and are waging a long, sad
battle to educate Lawrence about the reality of distemper being in our
community.  I've applied for a position on the board of directors for the
Lawrence Humane Society, and hope to help this very useful organization
implement new strategies for keeping ferrets in a safe, humane environment
as well as creating education programs that I hope will eliminate Distemper
from our community.
 
I'll keep you in my prayers.  Please don't give up on finding the real
illness.  Distemper is NOT your problem, because the symptoms are not the
right and the length of the illness is inappropriate.  Distemper is 100%
fatal in ferrets, and rarely offers two weeks of symptoms before death.
 
All the best,
 
Julie
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[Posted in FML issue 1911]