Happy Holidays to everyone,
 
I saw the ferrets from Loving Ferrets and that was awful but when I saw the
ferrets from Rollen Mason I was physically Ill.  My heart just dropped and
I was nauseous and I am a not even a very experienced ferret owner who is
familiar with ferret problems/diseases.  I honestly had to stop thinking
of them as individual feeling entities and more as which ones would
survive.  If Kim and I had stopped to cry over every one the way they
deserved to be cried over we would have been there for days.  They all
looked ancient I mean 8 plus years old and I was speechless when Kim
would point out the ones that were only a year or less old, but so ill
and neglected that their fur was patchy and greasy, their nails were an
inch and longer and very thick.
 
I can't describe seeing cage after cage of bright flaming orange colored
ferrets that you could tell should have been white but were covered in
urine and feces.  Of seeing bright red, raw noses,ears, around the eyes and
bottoms of the feet from wire cage floors and urine burn.  Every ferret
that we picked up was covered in excrement-- caked up and down the back
legs on noses, tails, feet on the nails..everywhere.  I have never seen
such apathetic animals either they were all dazed and hardly moved.
 
It was the worst thing I have ever seen first hand.  It gives me nightmares
when I think about those poor animals and how they would have continued to
suffer if that man hadn't died.  He had friends who had ferrets, People
KNEW this man and LIKED him maybe even someone on one of the ferret
lists--what happened?
 
It makes me incredibly sad seeing all these ferret tragedies first hand,
first loving ferrets, then the New York 11 now this-- not to mention the
neglect and abuse that comes into the shelter weekly.  It makes you want
to give up especially when it happens so close to Christmas when things
should be happy and fun.  Please help one or both of the shelters who took
these ferrets in.  I know that the 11 foster ferrets I took from Kim to
make room for the Rollen Mason ferrets are going to have the best Christmas
I can give them.
 
Lisa
[Posted in FML issue 3277]