Mary,
You made the point that someone who would buy a ferret for the first time
should do research first, in response to my point that pet stores are the
first exposure to ferrets for many.
 
In 1993, when I first saw a ferret and became interested in acquiring one
for my household, I did research ferrets.  I called all over the city I
lived in, asking pet stores if they had any books on ferrets.  The response
I got time and again were 'no'.  I wound up going to the library, where
they had two books on ferrets.  One was written in 1929, and was about the
use of ferrets as mousers and how to house them in pens outdoors.  The
other was the first book written by Dr. Wendy Winstead.  And although I
know she was one of the first people to get people interested in ferrets as
pets, the amount of information about what we now consider excellent care
was minimal at best.  Neither book mentioned anything about shelters or
private breeders.  As far as I know, Modern Ferret started publishing in
1994, and probably wasn't all that widely available for a few years after
that.  Now, we know that Ferrets by Fancy Publications is even newer than
that.  When I got my first ferret, I couldn't find anything labeled 'ferret
food'.  There were no litter boxes made for them, cages specifically made
for them were hard to find.  I found 1 pet store that sold two ferret
products, the SuperPet nylon hammock and the nylon hanging tunnel.  I had
to buy a cage that was homemade (it was pretty awful by today's standards,
made with wood) try umpteen different things for their litterboxes, used a
cut up modified milk jug for their bed.  I had no clue that they needed
furball remedy, that ferretone existed, what the signs and symptoms for any
diseases were.  I guess God was watching out for us, because I sometimes
wonder how those fuzzies survived my lack of knowledge.
 
Now it's 1999.  I can go to just about any pet store and purchase books,
magazines, products, high-quality foods.  I can search the internet and get
lots of information easily.  What made the difference?  The popularity of
the ferret as a pet.  Plain and simple.  More people now own them, so the
information is being passed on, and the pet supplies industry saw the need
and the means to make money.  Those of you who are new to fuzzy parenting
have no idea how isolated all the old-timers were in their love for
fuzzies.  I'm sure a few people on this list can tell you just how isolated
they were 15 years ago.
 
>The education process - buying from a responsible breeder, not a pet store
>IS the education process!!!!!!  An education process that will go a long
>way to bring down numbers of the 20 million animals destroyed every year.
>And while its going to be tough to get pet stores to give up selling
>animals - that's no reason to cave, give up, accept and participate.
 
Ok, here's a question....how do you reach the people needing the education?
Hope that they'll show up to shelter open houses?  A few, maybe, but
mostly, the advertising for these reaches only people who are already
involved in the ferret community.  Ferret shows are one way, ferret
awareness and education days at a place people who are interested in
getting their first ferret from are another.  In both cases, we are using
PetCo to get these educational opportunities.
 
Come on, folks, the world ain't a perfect place.  Does this mean that we
shouldn't work towards that goal?  Not at all!  Every accomplishment made
might help give another fuzzy a good, happy life.  The day that every
ferret is picked at an appropriate age, and kept in the same home, being
treated with the loving respect, having everything it could ever need,
I'll stand up and cheer!  But I know a thing or two about human nature, and
you can call me a pessimist, but I don't think it's gonna happen in our
lifetimes.  So I'm going to do the best I can, making one life at a time
better.
 
Sherry
[Posted in FML issue 2689]