>From:    Robynn McCarthy <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Wanting Ferrets to be Popular, etc.
>How much truth do you tell the public while you're educating,
>without making ferrets sound like bad pets.
 
Tell the whole truth.  If ferrets are such bad pets why the heck do we all
have them?  You are basically claiming we are all dumb enough to have bad
pets.  Thanks but I really feel I am smart enough to have great pets.  Bad
pets don't stay around.  Well that is we don't keep getting more of them.
We were watching some prarie dogs for someone in need.  THey were dreadful.
We gave them back to her and will not consider bringing anymore into our
home.  We had some box turtles for a while.  For our purposes they were
not good pets.  We don't have any more box turtles.
 
Ferrets are GREAT pets.  Great personalities (most anyway).  Easy to care
for.  Yes.  I am firmly convinced ferrets are easy to care for.  You can
cage them while they must be restrained and its not a big problem.  They
are easy to feed a "good enough" diet of quality kibble.  YEs there are
better things that do take more effort.  They are (mostly) litter box
trainable.
 
>Actually because of our mention of the conditions (not even naming the
>breeder) through posts on our local email list, our non-profit club was
>threatened with litigation by the breeder.
 
Tell the exact truth without embellishment or personal aspersions (your
FML post didn't manage to do that) and there is no danger of a lawsuit.
 
>Do I want ferrets to become popular pets?  No..I don't
 
Too late.  They already are.  Not in the same league with dogs and cats
but no other pet is.
 
But I DO want ferrets to continue to become more popular.  Darned straight!
If they don't continue to get more popular we won't get alternative
vacciens to Fervac-D.  We won't get continued devlopment of commerical
ferret foods.  We won't get more and mroe products designed specifically
for our ferrets.  We won't have interest enough to encourage research into
veterinary procedures specifically for ferrets.  Heck we wouldn't get the
growing number of quality ferret resources such as the FML and FFML.
rec.pets.ferrets (okay my ISP is srewing up so I get no newsgroup access
right now but that a different issue) or the many good web pages.  WEll we
do have to put up with the lower quality resources and web pages but they
can be filtered.
 
I am glad I can now learn more about ferrets than I could know when I got
my first ferret.  I could not have done through research then to the level
that a new ferret owner now can as the information did not exist.
 
>However I DO very much want ferrets to be more understood in the
>eyes of the public.
 
Kind of hard to have the second without the first.  Ferrets only become
known by the public in general as they become popular in their social
circles.  We current ferret owners can "spread the word" all we want but
it won't reach folks until they are receptive, which is when people they
know have ferrets.
 
>But then again if we can't get the Ca Ca Fishing Gestapo to understand
>about ferrets, how can we expect the rest of society to understand?
 
Personal aspersions which can cause problems.  It is normal for many
including some we greatly admire to use terms like that but it isn't
productive.
 
The public at large will understand ferrets as they continue to gain in
popularity.  THey will continue to gain in popularity since they are great
pets.
 
>I know it's hard sometimes, but I think if we focus on the positives,
>educate about the realities and support those doing good work we as a
>community will be much better off.
 
Now at the bottom you end up stating something I fully agree with.
Specific examples of when its hard and who in particular is doing good
work we may well disagree on but the sentiment we do.
 
-bill
 
--
bill and diane killian
zen and the art of ferrets
http://www.zenferret.com/
mailto:[log in to unmask]
[Posted in FML issue 2688]