On the FML recently I have read numerous articles about a company called
PetCo and how they exploit our furry friends.  Here in Utah, we don't have
PetCo's, we have PetsMart.
 
Over a year ago, I wrote and called them several times about allowing U.F.O.
to set up a petition stand outside there store to collect petition
signatures for our legalization effort and too help educate people about
Ferrets.  I called their corporate office in Arizona five times in a week.
Leaving detailed messages about what we were trying to accoplish here.  I
sent several letters with outlines of our plans and I even offered to go
into all four of the Pets Marts to educate their employees about Ferrets so
they could better educate their customers.  (My experience with their
teenage and adult employees was they don't know squat about ferrets)
 
To this day I have not received even a simple call back from them.  The
local store managers will not allow us to put up flyers on their pet
bulletin boards about Ferrets nor will they help us.  BUT, they had tripled
their ferret supplies and even advertise ferret products now.
 
If that is not explotation, I don't know what is.  But, we have that problem
all over Salt Lake County.  Pet stores are beginning to sell ferrets even
though they are still illegal to own.  The new Animal Control Officer for
Salt Lake County has heard my pleas to help slow down the explotation and
overpopulation of ferrets by adding a stipulation in the new animal
ordinance concerning ferrets.  It states that new ferret owners will have to
read a booklet and take a semi simple test about ferrets before they can be
purchased.  This will hopefully slow down the impulse buyer who takes a
Ferret home and then realizes what he/she have done.
 
Petsmart does not sell live animals, usually.  But, U.F.O. and the S.L.
Animal Control wants to stop the explotation of our furry friends before it
gets out of hand.
 
YOUR COMMENTS ARE WELCOME [log in to unmask]
Thanks,
Rick
United Ferret Organization (excluding Mass.)
[Posted in FML issue 2371]