>From:    Pamela Greene <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Age of ferret owners; Breeding FAQ (replies)
 
One of my favourite things that happens is when I meet another ferret owner
in, say, a pet store, and get to chatting with them and they kind of give me
the brush off because they figure I'm just some over-zealous "kid."  So I
give them a card and a few months later they'll call the number and figure
they've gotten some adult (I dunno, probably my mum or something?) and we
chat about ferrets and they are always impressed with me on the phone.  Then
they meet me (again) in person and are always shamefaced that the "kid" they
brushed off in the pet store just diagnosed adrenal disease or something in
their beloved pet.
 
Those people who would be hesitant to adopt to someone under 25 need to rely
more on intuition than age discrimination.  Our only real strict rule is
when it comes to young kids and toddlers, and we'll only adopt to families
like this in rare instances, if we are really confident in the family.  We
do this to protect the shelter from backlash if a ferret bites a wee one,
because people want to blame the shelter for adopting them a "nasty" ferret
rather than blame themselves for not supervising the ferret-kid encounter.
And we only rarely will adopt a ferret as a pet *for* a child.
 
On a side note, are there are other shelters that tattoo rescues?  We looked
into micro-chipping, but it's not very universally used here, and we wanted
a better identification system so we are going with tattoos.  Probably on
the inside left thigh where it will be hard to miss.  Anybody got any better
suggestions as to the location?
 
Regarding shelter asking for money:
 
It's hard for some people to comprehend the difficulty and magnitude of
running a shelter, especially financially, when they don't do it themselves.
Our shelter is temporarily closing to new rescues until we pay some of our
vet bills down, because as a full time university student I simply have run
out of money, my credit cards declined at the vet's yesterday when I tried
to pay for vaccinations and a couple of surgeries and I'm a few months
behind on my own bills.  Without the support of wonderful people who donate
food, money and time, lots of shelter simply couldn't stay in business,
because most of us are not independantly wealthy and even our jobs can't
sustain the shelters.
 
Butler's ear has finally healed up once we put him on Baytril and did three
surgeries to remove gangrenous portions of the ear.  He has a lot less ear
now, but he sure is doing well and playing with his buddies again.  Thanks
to everyone who replied with advice.
Sheena - [log in to unmask]                           |To Err is Ferret  |
Director - Wherret Ferrets Halfway House & Ferretry  |To Forgive...well |
VP - Ferret Association of Greater Vancouver         |...That's Our Job!|
         We're on the Web! http://ww2.portal.ca/~cmc~/ferrets/fagv/
[Posted in FML issue 1739]