Hi everyone,
 
A few weeks ago one of our clubs shelters received 24 copies of a new
ferret at no cost to us.  The name of the book is "The pet ferret owner's
manual" by Judith A.  Bell, DVM, PhD.  Before our club or shelters sell or
give away any new products, we always test them, or in this case read them.
When I saw the book I was looking forward to giving them to people but only
because of the "apperance" of the book.  It has some wonderful pictures.  I
started reading this book 2 night ago and I must say that I am very
dissapointed and I will not give any of these book to anyone that is a
first time ferret owner.  I am only 8 chapters into the book (it has 17
chapters) and I have highlighted probably 3 pages worth of material I do
not agree with.  I thought I was just being picky until I asked the two
shelter directors what they thought of it.  They said THE SAME THING!!!!!
 
For example, this book says it is OK to give ferrets milk but it is not OK
to give ferrets Penut Butter.  In my experiance it is the other way around
9as long as the penut butter isn;t the chunky kind).  Also, the book says
that clumping litter and wood chips are GREAT for ferrets and that it is OK
to flea dip ferrets.  On page 9 (!!!!!!!) the author writes "Ferrets
require neither human nor ferret company for security or amuzement", "They
can be left with an adequate supply of food and water and will be quite
happy to spend their days alone".  Wait.......it gets better.  "They
require little out of cage excerise".  Aren't these some of the myths that
bring ferrets to our shelters in the first place.  Why would someone write
a book an encourage people not to give there ferrets the attention they
need?
 
Have any of you read this book?  If you have, do you agree with me?  And
what can we do so first time ferret owners do not buy this book and think
it has the correct information?
 
Samantha Rosier
President
Club Ferret Las Vegas
[Posted in FML issue 2421]