Thanks to those who contacted us. We sincerely appreciate your offers
of help! It looks like we will have 1 adopter, and 1, and possibly 2
new foster families. Yeah!

It still leaves us looking for more adopters and potential foster
families. (FACT's foster program is a permanent placement program.
Email me separate for details as we just realized that we don't have it
described on our website.) We are also going to be doing a small
fund-raiser (when I get a chance) for melatonin implants. FACT just
ordered some for our shelter ferrets, but it appears we are going to
need at least 4, possibly 5 more for these kids as nearly all have
moderate to severe hair loss.

A warning to other shelters. It appears that the owner was a pet store
employee. Almost all of these animals were adopted from shelters
(fortunately, no ferret came from FACT or any other ferret shelter to
anyone's knowledge). But the cats, dog and other critters were adopted
at "adoption days" held in the pet store.

Also. it seems, this woman was initially acting as a private shelter
and placed animals, but somewhere along the line stopped adopting
out ---- BUT did not stop acquiring animals.

Hoarding is a growing problem and it behooves all of us to learn as
much as possible about it and ways to recognize it. The house was a
sty. But the ferrets all had food. BUT, none of them had water. When
the ACO picked them up, most were limp and very dehydrated. The large
snake according to the rehabber who took it, had probably not eaten in
months.

We can't stop hoarders ourselves, but we must always guard against
contributing to it.

Ann Gruden
Ferret Assn of CT

[Posted in FML 6899]