As a shelter who also sells pet supplies, we have a fantastic repeat
business of people who know we sell supplies to support our rescue efforts
and who wish to help our efforts.  Many people drive 50 miles and more every
couple of months to purchase supplies from us because they want to support
our rescue animals, as they care about them as we do.  However, there's
always that 1 tenth of 1% of people who just don't understand the difference
between a shelter and a pet store.
 
On Monday of this week a very rude person arrived at our shelter and stated
that she'd just bought a ferret and was here to 'buy another one'.  This
person was told by a volunteer that we are a shelter and that the adoption
manager was not in, but this person insisted upon receiving information
about all of the ferrets in the shelter, even though the volunteer
repeatedly told her that all she knew was what was written on the cage
cards.
 
This person very rudely followed a volunteer into the back of the shop, past
an "employees only" sign and saw two young ferrets playing in our exercise
room.  She still didn't get it (we're a shelter and we don't just SELL
ferrets to whoever has a credit card) and she insisted to our volunteer that
she wanted to purchase one of them.  In order to get rid of her, the
volunteer did what she's been instructed to do, she gave the person an
adoption application to complete and told her that she'd be contacted.
 
As a shelter we do what is best for the animal, not what is best for
someone with a credit card and no patience.  This person was told that
she'd be called, but instead chose to phone the shelter numerous times, and
with each call attempted to intimidate and coerce the volunteers into
giving her the ferret.  We do NOT adopt biting ferrets to inexperienced
ferret people, especially when the person is only interested in the color
of the ferret and doesn't care about the personality of the animal.  As
everyone knows, there has been major discussions on this list about biting
ferrets and the frequent difficulties in training them to stop biting.  Our
shelter personnel gets to know newly arrived ferrets, if they are biting we
work with them to stop the biting, in cases where we fail to correct this
behavior, we rigorously screen potential adoptors. Biting ferrets may end
up spending the remainder of their lives with us.  Ferrets simply don't go
out into the public part of the shelter until they have been quarantined
for two weeks; until we get to know them personally; and not until they
have gone to the vet.   We are not interested in a 'quick turn around', nor
are we interested in a fast buck, we are interested only in what's best for
the ferrets who cross our paths.
 
This person was given the name of two other shelters in the Seattle area,
but she flippantly stated that we had "forced" her to go back to the pet
store where she bought her first ferret because she wasn't about to put up
with the #$%^ that shelters wanted to put people through.
 
Sorry that this was so long, just had to air my disappointment with this
type of person, one who fails to care what's best for the many 'recycled'
animals in this world but who instead requires immediate self-gratification.
That's obviously their right, just as it is also our right to do what we
feel is best for the animals who belong to us.
 
Sandi Ackerman
Best Little Rabbit, Rodent & Ferret House
Seattle, WA
[Posted in FML issue 2246]