I posted the information about the shelter closing.  You all need to hear
OUR side of the story.
 
We are a very small club (6 total members).
 
What Kevin B. posted is essentially correct.  Let me add some FACTS.
 
Yes, the shelter mom was burned out.  But, she would not tell us directly
that she wanted out.  It took me asking her directly if she wanted to
quit doing the shelter.  While she may have been talking to Chris about
it for two years, she never talked to the club about it.  When asked if
she needed help, she would usually say no.
 
When members came by to help, they usually found it in good condition,
i.e., food, water, some poop, but not outrageous.  These good conditions
lasted until about six weeks ago, as far as we can tell because that is
the last time some club members went to help our shelter mom clean, etc.
 
On September 6, our shelter mom said she would like help in finding a new
home for the shelter.  When asked directly what time frame she wanted, at
that time, she said "Whenever".  After that, the LAFL board tried to meet
to try to figure out what we could do; our schedules never worked.  On
September 15 we had a meeting, but two board members didn't show, so
(according to our by-laws) we couldn't make any decisions about the
shelter.  At that meeting, our shelter mom was directly asked how she was
doing with the shelter.  She said OK, there's not a huge hurry, be she
wanted resolution within the next month.
 
Our next meeting was on September 29.  We asked our shelter mom how
many ferrets were in the shelter and what condition they were in.  Her
response was that there were three adrenals and the rest were healthy.
We decided to ask Chris if she would take the three adrenals along with
six healthy ferrets and $150 (nearly all the money we had in the shelter
fund).  Chris agreed to it and said she would be there on Tuesday (10/1)
at 1:00.
 
At this point, all the members believed that our shelter mom had been
caring for the ferrets as she had always cared for them, excellently.  We
had no reason to believe she would do otherwise.  She has been caring for
shelter ferrets for five years and we had no complaints.  The club did
not know this was so extreme; we did not know that there were so many
adrenal cases.  Had anyone thought the ferrets were being abused, we
would have stepped in right away.
 
Anyone who has ever known our shelter manager would know that she would
never do anything to endanger a living thing; she is a kind and generous
person who has been hit with some overwhelming things in the past couple
of months.  It is unfortunate that none of us paid heed to the hints she
dropped, but we didn't and it is now done.  I don't think anything can
come from beating her up over this.  She feels guilty enough as it is.
 
Take this in anyway you want; you can flame me, you can call me dirty
names (and I fully expect both to happen) but this is the truth.  The
shelter went downhill in a very short period of time and we weren't
aware of it.
 
Melanee Ellis
"The Ferret Lady"
Eugene, OR
[Posted in FML issue 3929]