Well its been a long time since i have posted, but work and the shelter
is keeping me so busy i have very little free time.  But last week we
really dodged a bullet, a big one.  Getting hme from work last Wednesday
my son Damian walked in to the house and said that the house was as hot
as outside.  I'm not sure how long the Ac was out but it was over 90
degrees in side.  The ferrets were very hot, some were in early stages
of heat exhaustion.  I made sure everyone was ok and we started calling
AC companies.
 
Well in the middle of a heat wave every one was a 2 days wait for
service.  We were explaining the situation and that the ferrets would
die in the extream heat.  One woman laughed at that, like so what.  so
I used my best cuss works and told her off.  i was friggin panicing and
at that point pissed off.  I kept calling places but stoped telling the
story, I was over it.  My son was on his cell and was still telling
everyone our situation, he finally got a company to come out first thing
in the morning.  Great, now getting the ferrets cooled off and the house
cool was the next task.  i got as many people to the house as I could,
they brought ice, and fans.  we put ice bags in the cages, wet down
ferrets, put alcohol on the pads of their feet.  My son used his car
repair money he was saving and went and bought a window ac unit, that
started cooling of the down stairs, but up stairs was still hot with
only the fans.  Then a call came in form a stranger, i wasn't going to
answer the phone as I was ingnoring earlier calls so I could care for
the ferrets, but i answered the phone.  A woman said she was a dispatcher
for local ac companies and she got a call from kim at Energy Star about
our situation, Caroyln the dispatcher tried to get someone out to help
us but no one would come before 2 days.  She told me she had a portable
ac unit we could borrow.  Luckly Mark one of my bosses was there and
knew someone with a ruck to go pick it up.  It was a miracle, the ferrets
would be ok.
 
Well to a house full of sweating people and hot ferrets a prayer was
answered.  Still working like crazy to keep vigil over the ferrets we
starting losing one.  Wolfy an old insulanoma boy went almost comatose.
After fluids, coolling down, meds, etc he came around and started eating
soup.  He is in a foster home for the time being getting extra love and
attention with his sister Minky.  Anyway, the next day the air got fixed
and the house cooled down to below 80 after sundown, 2 hot days in the
house was enough.
 
Thanks to the kindness of strangers and a handfulful of volunteers we
suffered no casulties.  I felt the bullet breeze by my head.  There were
almost 100 ferrets there, I was about to have a break down.  This put a
financial crunch on me but we had help so it could have been much worse
way worse.  In the middle of everything we got a call from San diego AC
for a pick up so we had to send someone there to do the rescue, which
got done.  another 12 ferrets were dumped on the shelter last week end,
11 from one family.  I don't have the exact numbers in front of me but
i can tell you we have taken in over 200 ferrets, adopted out over 100
ferrets, have over 100 right now at the shelter and over 30 in foster
homes at this time.
 
We did 30 lupron shots on Sat., a surgery that i will explain later,
another surgery this week.  In august we are having a raffle to help
with the vet bills, food and litter alone per week cost 250 dollars.
So please look for Pablo's Helping Paws Summer Raffle comming in August.
 
We really could use some helpers, we lost some great volunteers this year
and we need new adoption consulers, cage cleaners, etc.  We need foster
homes and perminate homes.
 
Please visit our website at 24kferret.com and see some of our new kids.
 
Sorry for the long post, but it was now or never to find the time to
write.  Hopefully I'll post more later as I have so many thank you's to
catch up on.
 
Take care,
CJ 24 Carat Ferret Rescue And Shelter
"where ferrets are treated like gold"
[Posted in FML issue 4950]