Quick story of two recent rescue ferrets that came through the pet store
where I work.
 
The first was a rather thin sable male with a not-so-hot temperament.  We
think he's around two and a half years old and was happily played with by
his family for about six or so much until they got bored and locked him in
his cage, just fed and watered until they brought him into the store.  Since
he is extremely hand-shy, we would only show him to ferret-experienced
people with plenty of warning that he was a biter.  Two people got bitten
because they delibrately ignored our warnings about his biting.  Because of
the biting though (he bit three employees too) the managers asked me for ten
dollars to take him home, which we have.  He's getting along a bit with our
other five -- a bit wary, as he didn't have much exposure to other ferrets
either.
 
The other story is much sadder.  When I came into work today, one of my
managers said we had a new ferret in that they only took in order to give to
me.  The story here is some people were given this little ferret (black-eyed
white female, BTW) and didn't take good care of it.  They fed her Skippy's
canned dog food.  Sometime later, a friend of their's saw this ferret and
was completely appalled by her condition, so took her away.  Not knowing
what to do with her or how to help her, he brought her into our pet store.
Phil (the livestock manager) took one look and said "Give her to Michelle."
I took one look and said "WAAAAAAAAAAY out of my league, time to call
Ferrets, Etc."
 
This ferret is literally skin and bones.  When she stands she wobbles like
she's drunk and can barely keep her feet.  You can feel every bone in her
body and her stomach is maybe a finger's width away from her spine.  She is
so dehydrated that you can just barely pull her skin at all.  When Stephanie
came to get her, she said her heart sounds good (thank God for small
favors).  I held her while Stephanie gave her some sub-q fluids and off she
went to the rescue.  My fingers are crossed for her to make it through, poor
little baby.
 
At any rate, thank God for rescue's like Stephanie runs and thank God for
pet store managers that are willing to take in rescue animals, or this
little girl wouldn't be alive much longer.
 
Michelle
 
--
Meet my pets.  The ferrets (Taz, Coffee, Daphne, Tia, and Gretchen), the
gerbils (31 of them), the zebra mouse (Racer), the rats (seven of them), the
budgies (Sky and Cindy), the cockatiels (Snow and Spice), and the fish
(various).   RIP Honey, Summer, Grendel, Peggie and Timmy.
[Posted in FML issue 1392]