My wife and I were recently in a local mall when we happened by a pet
store called Animal Kingdom.  We stepped in to see if they had any ferts,
and they did.  They had 3 or 4 kits about the usual pet store age and one
slightly older and larger ferret.  A big sign on their acrylic "cage"
said, "One Ferret Reduced to $79.00 from $149.00".
 
My wife wasted no time in pulling up the clear lid on the cage and scooping
the one larger ferret out of the group.  He was a nice healthy looking dark
sable, with some slight encrusting on his nose.  He was calm, and my wife
was holding him when a salesgirl, about 18 or 19 years old hurried over and
told my wife rather excitedly, "they bite and that ferret bites really hard
and won't let go.  You shouldn't be holding him, he's dangerous.  We don't
like people holding them".
 
It turns out that the store had this particular fuzzy "marked down" because
he was alleged to be a biter.  My wife laughed and explained that we had a
couple of the little beasties at home and we would watch ourselves with
him.  Apparently dismayed by our total disregard for this "killer ferret",
the girl slung her hair and stomped off in a bit of a huff saying, "well
you've been warned...".  My wife held him for several more minutes and
finally put him back in the cage.  He never even tried to nip us once.
 
My wife extracted one of the other kits from the cage, scruffed it gently
and began examining it to determine if it was a male or female.  Again this
girl came over and almost screamed at us to "not hold the ferrets by the
neck!" I began explaining to her about scruffing ferrets, but she became
belligerent and said in a nasty voice, "when you buy it and take it home
you can hold it by the neck all you want !"
 
My wife and I then tried to explain to this idiot that the reason the other
guy was "maybe" a biter was that he wasn't handled enough or in the proper
manner and just needed to be trained.  She wouldn't listen to us, so we put
the kit back in the cage and walked out of the store, shaking the dust from
our feet.
 
It was obvious this person had no clue about ferrets.  We found it hard to
believe that their care and marketing to the public would be entrusted to
someone like this.  We felt sorry for the "biter".  He will probably never
find a good home while that store has him.
[Posted in FML issue 2399]