I don't keep up very well.  Like most others who maintain shelters I'm dead
tired by the time I get to the computer, and then if I'm "doing mail" I'm
feeling guilty because I'm not answering the 15-30 calls we get each week.
I am distressed, however, by the dilema of whom to treat when resources are
limited.  At first I thought I had no suggestions to offer, we are able to
pay our vet bills.  (Of course, the last time I said we had no problem with
overcrowding the foundlings began to arrive, in multiples, and our census
hasn't fallen below 30-40 for months.)
 
Anyway I suspect that our fortunate situation is related to some lucky
occurences and to some things we have done with purpose.  The first thing we
did was to become 501c3, non-profit.  This alone totally changed our income
picture.  People like to make tax deductable contributions, especially
during the holidays.  One family even tithed a percentage of their income
for two years.  The second thing we did was to gussy up a newsletter and
flat out ask for money and stuff.  Our mailing list is approaching 1000,
including over 200 veterinary clinics and almost 60 departments of animal
control in the greater Kansas City area, 35 pet stores that deal with
ferrets, and several hundred individuals who have contacted us by phone over
the past five years.  Non-profit bulk mailing rates have helped a lot.
Lastly, we have encouraged people to put us in their wills by setting an
example for this.  Unless things change a great deal my house, including the
shelter, will down the road belong to the ferrets.  How's that for
long-range strategic planning?
 
The best lucky thing that happened is that we found a vet who is an
excellent surgeon, loves ferrets and has his own, and who discounts our
costs of care significantly.  And he can deduct from his taxes the cost of
our discount.  We recommend him to everyone and his practice has grown
significantly because of this.  He reports that he treats as many ferrets as
he does cats or dogs.  His charges are reasonable and fair and his
reputation has grown so that ferret people will drive many miles to his
clinic.  And, of course, the more ferrets he treats the better he gets at
it.  He has successfully removed those tricky right-sided adrenal tumors
entwined with aorta.  He also removed, from a ferret dumped on another vet's
doorstep, a benign but ugly scalp tumor that was larger than the ferret's
head.  (This little one's ears are a bit crooked because of the grafting
flap but she's beautiful, healthy, and happy and has a wonderful home.)
 
As shelter directress and benign despot I have made a decision to treat
conservatively whenever this makes sense, and frankly, to an aging RN this
makes sense most of the time.  This means we don't do a lot of expensive
testing.  If you can't recognize the signs and symptoms of falling blood
sugar or intestinal infection, or the tell tale signs of adrenal disease, or
the more dramatic evidence of intestinal obstruction, without confirmational
lab tests you haven't been in the ferret business very long.  We also do, at
home, a lot of the supportive kinds of care that can be expensive if the
vet's clinic does it.  Most of what our sick babies need is not medical care
but basic nursing care.  Nutrition, hydration, medication administration,
wound management, suture removal, etc.  are better done at home where the
germs that hang out are familiar and the atmosphere is less stressful.
(This is also true for humans.  People go to hospitals because they need
nursing, not medical care, and the quicker they can get back home the faster
they heal.)
 
Some of this may help, some may not, but if we can help in some way,
perhaps with the 501c3 thing, let us know.  Bobbi <+:-)
[Posted in FML issue 2137]