I don't know about anyone else, but I'm a bit tired of the Doug McKay
arguments. Now we've degenerated to picking apart each other's typos
for lack of substantive reasoned replies.

Been to MFRAN's site, read the "affadavit", seen the photos. Yes, the
place is a mess. Obviously there is not enough labor available to keep
the place clean. The cats are probably there to keep the rodents under
control. I noticed that everytime the person who wrote the "affadavit"
saw a cat eating something, they refused to actually look at what the
cat was eating. The veiled implication was that it must have been a
ferret carcass the cat was eating, but no where in the "affadavit" I
read was that actually confirmed by someone having the guts to walk up
to the cat and confirm it. I was only able to access the site once, by
the way. The second time none of the links worked. I'm using Mozilla
Firefox on a Linux machine at home and I probably accessed the site
originally at work where it's Windoze 2000 and IE (for those techies
who care about such things).

In my experience of contests (play sessions) between ferrets and cats,
the ferrets win. This is not to say that a cat couldn't kill a ferret,
just that it would have a harder time doing so than killing a mouse or
a rat, and cats don't generally like to work harder than they have to.
However, I admit that a sick or weak ferret would probably not be a
match for a healthy cat.

Bill Killian says that Doug is a kind old man. I have no reason to
think Bill K. is lying. I also think DM is probably in over his head at
this point. But, those who say he should just stop breeding and give up
the ferrets are ignoring one huge point. After DM allows people to shut
him down, what does he do to live? How does he bring food to the table
and keep the heat on (after all, it's COLD in Ohio, remember?) Has
anyone looked into finding out what kind of situation DM will be in
after the ferrets are gone? Will his children be able/willing to
support him? He may be in a bit of a catch-22 situation.

We've got people posting that they don't care about Doug or his family,
they think the world is better off without DM and his family, they only
care about the ferrets. That's really nice. Being nasty to Doug isn't
going to make him feel inclined to cooperate with anybody. And if you
are polite to his face and wish him dead behind his back, don't think
he won't know about it. I doubt the man is stupid.

I guess I'll end here by saying this: If you are in an animal rescue
organization of any type, you will have much better success by trying
to understand and sympathize with your fellow human beings. You don't
have to agree with them. You don't have to like them. You do need to
maintain objectivity and not let your emotions run wild. But at least
try to go a little beyond the surface of what you see and understand
why a given situation has deteriorated to the point where the animals
may be better off elsewhere. It never hurts to develop more
understanding of the people in the community you are serving.

Would it be possible BIG, for the sake of sanity on the list, to allow
a designated person from MFRAN or someone in Ohio who is has first hand
knowledge of the situation, to post once a week or at some other
interval about what's being done and what, if anything is needed? I'm
thinking of a "bulletin" type post where people could reply off list to
the poster if they have something to offer, but where we wouldn't have
angry nit-picking posts flying back and forth on the list. I notice we
haven't heard much from any list members outside the US lately, and
even some regular US posters have been fairly silent. Anyway, just a
thought.

Karen

[Moderator's note: Thanks Karen.  The way the discussion is going I
will more than likely call an end to it tomorrow, which will have
pretty much the same effect.  It's rather quickly turned ugly. That's
not to say updates won't get posted -- of course they will.  But the
arguing about whether or not DM is a kind man trying to make a living
or a criminal trying to take advantage of us is not the way to go. BIG]

[Posted in FML 5544]