Dear Tara,
I would like to shed some light on the questions you asked of Kim Fox.
 
Before, I respond to the post, I would ask that the readers of the FML
familiarize themselves with the Archives of the FML.  It's very user
friendly.  I ask that you put my one address I have had all these years
into the SEARCH by author.  That would be [log in to unmask]  You can
see that I have ocassionally posted.  I had one raging debate over
sanctuaries v shelters, and pleased to say that despite the heated
exchange, Cathy Strobach and myself are on very civil terms.  I now ask
the readers to put in the SEARCH box at the top, Kim Fox and hit enter
to see all of her posts on the FML.  It tells the story, in fact answers
Tara question quite well.  There, in the post you will see Ms. Fox invent
herself first as a transport, then a shelter and then an AC...all within
2 years.  I offer all of these archived posts up as proof documentation
to my following response to Tara.
 
Tara you asked how things went awry.  Kim Fox visited Rocky's for 30
minutes in NOVEMBER 1999.  It's absolutely true that she has not been
here since.  Although she made many plans to come up, including a
volleyball game with the SPCA...but she always failed to show.
 
I adopted to her brother and it was not successful.  It was the only time
I have met Kim Fox - NOVEMBER 1999 I learned a valuable lesson from that
adoption, I will never adopt to a large snake breeder again.  I am not
saying a snake owner, but a large snake breeder.  After little Rocket was
PTS on 1/1/00 her brother called me and told me what had just happened.
She was too far gone for treatment the vet advised.  Later in the week,
when I wrote Kim, she told me she was concerned, "she looked bad, nothing
but bones...when I was there for Christmas dinner".  I privately blamed
Kim for not seeking help for Rocket and letting her suffer for an
additional week.  But Kim Fox knew nothing about ferrets, and I forgave
her and did not make an issue of it.  After speaking to a specialist at
the Baltimore Zoo, it was his opinion that the snake breeding pheromones
sent the ferret into a suspended stress/anxiety attack.
 
After some casual email exchanges with Kim Fox, I was suddenly opening my
mail and finding Kim to be spilling her heart out with domestic problems.
This went on for a very long time, about how unhappy she was with her
boyfriend, and since they had bought their house he had changed so much.
I bought the victim role, hook line and sinker!!
 
In my second to the last email I sent Kim Fox, I suggested to her that
she come to my farm, and visit my "thinking rock" at the back acreage
overlooking the river.  She responded, "Dear Barb, you're a GODESS!!!!.
I have to admit however, I have been less than honest with you...."  Kim
went on to tell me that all she had told me was invented, that she was
a fraud.  Just that simple, she admitted that she was a lying fraud.
That there was no problem with her BF, it was really just her.  She was
having an affair with a married man at work, a contract hire, and he was
returning to his home in the UK.  She totally expected me to forgive
her....NOT!!!!!  I had been emotionally raped by a woman who I now know
loves to invent herself and reinvent herself.  She is delusional and
pretty damn convincing!!!
 
>Date: Mon, 20 Aug 2001 06:30:17 -0700
>From: Kim Fox <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: With a heavy heart
>
>Dear Friends,
>As some of you may know, I've become active in rescue, placement and
>transport of the fuzzy loves for a little less than a year.  Due to
>changes in my personal life and the fact that I will be renting for the
>next year instead of owning a home, I am being forced to give up most
>and possibly all of my furkids.  I have met the true love of my life and
>with that come some compromises.  This is something I feel I have to do
>for myself.  Part of this involves going on an extended visit of up to 6
>months to the UK........continued in archives.....
 
That I thought would be the last time I ever read or spoke to her.  I was
livid that I had been bold faced, imaginatively lied to, manipulated to
feel sorry for her.  Kim had set herself up as a transport, although many
of the ferrets ended up at her home.  One of the most upsetting of all
issues that we shelter moms go through, as well as devoted ferret owners,
are those that use poor judgement and just give their ferrets away
without thinking of their well being.  Next thing I read in the FML, is
that Kim Fox is asking everyone to take the ferrets she had "rescued", as
well as her personals.  She announced in that post about her "Knight in
Shining Armor" ....like I said folks, I am not writing anything here,
that was not posted on the FML by Kim herself.
 
Well, I wrote Kim Fox a personal letter.  It was not posted here.  It
was not posted on my Board.  Pooflingers did not even exist at the time.
IT WAS A PRIVATE EMAIL...but I did indeed tell her what I thought of
her ability to lie and deceive and her living her life as a fraud, and
throwing her rescues and personal ferrets away on a whim.
 
After that private email, the following was posted on the FML.
 
>Date: Tue, 4 Sep 2001 12:06:49 -0700
>From: Kim Fox <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Many thanks
>
>This past month has been an absolute nightmare.  After losing our Buddy
>Looove, I had to move out of my house from my insignificant other (ugly
>situation) and in with room mates who very graciously and instantaneously
>took me in.  Within hours I packed my bare necessities and my fuzzies.
>Unfortunately one of the roomies went psycho and reported me to the
>landlord for having ferrets... <con't in archives>
 
>Date: Wed, 12 Sep 2001 11:35:56 -0700
>From: Kim Fox <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Response/Collectors
>
>I have recently been under fire by a ferret "rescue" in PA in response
>to my post "Many Thanks".  In this post I merely thanked everyone who
>helped "ferret sit" for me while I was experiencing problems with my
>living arrangement.  <con't in archives?
 
>Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 07:00:59 -0700
>From: Kim Fox <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Ferrets, errors & cowards ..Oh My!
>
>Many of you know that I am under fire by another shelter because I
>didn't surrender my ferrets to them...instead I found them loving homes.
>Is this not a no brainer?  Anyway I did make a mistake in listing the
>shelter as being in PA.  It is in MD, but right at the PA line, so that
>was my confusion.  <con't in archives>
 
Ms Fox began her obsession with me and Rocky's right there.  A woman
named Casaundra Fallon resonded to her FML post about the horrific
shelter.  Ms. Fallon bcc'd me on every piece of email between she and
Kim Fox.  If anyone doesn't believe for one moment that Kim Fox is a
convincing liar, those emails will convince you.  Samples of her lies:
Barbara's ferrets never get medical, she's too cheap.  Barbara can't get
medical for any of her ferrets because she owes all the vets in Maryland.
Barbara is too cheap to put to sleep elderly or sick, she witholds
nourishment and let's them starve in their cages.  Barbara's home is
lined with cages where the elderly and sick are left to starve, lying in
their own 'electrolytes' - you can hear them screaming from outside.  She
refused to refund my brother's adoption fee (Ms. Fallon saw the cancelled
check).  Barbara has a barn where she electrocutes elderly and sick
ferrets, she's too cheap to PTS.  ROTF - She just went on and on,
 
Ms. Fox has been obsessed with me since then.  So Tara, to answer your
question for Ms. Fox, that's when things went awry, when I wrote her and
called her a liar and a fraud, and took her to task for getting rid of
rescues and personal ferrets.
 
Well, Ms. Fox's plans to run off into the sunset didn't exactly work
out...so she reinvented her, yet again, and again.
 
To respond to Kim Fox about Rocky's.  I never meant to be a shelter, but
one day I couldn't walk away from a 175 breeder rescue.  I bought the
entire breedery, had them altered, vac'd and adopted.  It most definitely
has been years of working and major sacrifice to continuously improve my
operation.  My God Kim when you were there I still had the original 20 yr
old galvanized Norton Jones cages with the rusted drop trays.  It was so
frustrating to finish cleaning and the place still smelled like urine,
because the rusted pans absorbed it.  They have since been replace with
custom made Martin's cages.  Many times I bit off more than I could chew,
with the size of the rescues, but the options those ferrets had were PTS
by AC or death by starvation in their existing condtions.  I found them
homes damnit, every one of them.  There hasn't been a mistake that I have
made in my 8 years of sheltering, that I didn't learn a good lesson from.
 
That's the difference between us Kim.  If you read in the ARCHIVES my
posts here on the FML, I never asked for a thing until Hagerstown hit.
If my shelter needed cages, well by golly myself and volunteers sold
pizza kits and candy bars to raise the funds - ITS CALLED WORK!!!  Every
year since I have been a shelter, my facility has improved, and I have
grown far more knowledgeable than when I started.  Rocky's is a damn good
shelter.  We're not perfect, but we try with all our hearts to do good
work.
 
You, Ms Fox, ought to take all the efforts you have put into years of FML
posts of baiting and dogging me, and work on being a better, honest and
real person.  Sell some pizza kits and get some of those adrenals done
that have been waiting.  You have shown bad judgement in the past and
lack initiative to make your shelter solvent.  As for being an Animal
Communicator, I believe you do hear voices.  I believe you need
professional help, if for nothing else, your obsession with me and my
life....you're beginning to scare me and others.  Time for you to
definitely move on and do something positive and productive.  Get a life
and leave mine alone.
 
Barbara Clay
Proud Shelter Director of Rocky's
Damn Proud Member of Pooflingers
[Posted in FML issue 4281]