>It's not the ferrets fault; it's not the infant's fault either.  It's
>the fault of the adult.
 
This is true! The adult should have been watching over the infant.. You
don't leave an infant unattended!
 
What is your preoccupation with ferrets biting infants?  It really doesn't
happen THAT often, but you're obsessed with it..  Do you enjoy hearing
reports about injured infants?
 
Ack.
 
>Of course it doesn't.  One bite is one bite too many, and especially at
>least one bite every so often somewhere in the world.
 
ANY pet bite is one too many..  YOU DON'T LEAVE YOUR CHILD UNATTENDED WITH
A PET.  There, is that big enough for you?  Is that CLEAR enough?  It is
not the child's fault - it is too small to be able to protect itself.
It's not the ferret's fault - it's reacting to its environment.  It's the
adult's fault for letting it happen.
 
>On the average, the female helpers spend more time "playing" with the
>ferrets and "cuddling" them than cleaning the crap out of litter pans and
>washing cages and utensils.  Plus the fact they are too weak to lift a
>bucket full of ferret waste or lift a bag of fresh cat litter.  If there
>are two or more here they are BS-ing most of the time & they eventually
>both try to do less than the other one. Once they are bitten by a ferret,
>they become so gun-shy (or should I say "ferret-shy") that they are
>apprehensive & become essentially useless and somebody else must remove
>and replace any given ferret before any more meaningful work is done.
 
Eh... Well, don't come to my place..  I certainly wouldn't need your help
lifting ANYTHING.  I've unloaded a ton of hay into the loft, carried in
80lb feed bags, shovled more feces than all your ferrets combined can
produce.
 
Have I dealt with biting animals?  You bet'cha!  From abused horses &
rabbits to even ferrets.  Am I gun-shy?  Heck no.  I'm a little more
careful where I put my hands and move a little slower around the animal in
effort to encourage trust.
 
I wonder how many ferret owners out there are female... From a look at the
FML it seems that there's more females (at least in my opinion) that are
entirely capable of taking care of whatever needs to be taken care of and
then some.
 
As for yacking during the job... I'll admit, I'm all for that.  But I work
too... Some people are good at multi-tasking.
 
>The male helpers............. <snip>
 
There you go being sexist again....
 
>Some say they won't take in shelter ferrets because they are afraid of
>possibly infecting their breeder stock.  This is true of Judy Moon.  But
>at the same time, she'll take back a ferret of hers that she's previously
>sold to a customer and doesn't seem to have any concern whatsoever that
>the ferret that is returned to her is or is not disease free.  Now that
>makes a lot of sense?  Not much.  In addition she will also sell intact
>ferrets for breeding by private parties.  All this adds a terrific load
>on the local shelters.  So I would request that no one buy a ferret from
>a breeder who is not also sheltering public ferrets.
>
>Any of you hold similar opinions?
 
Now isn't this surprising... You didn't check your facts, once again.
She'll take back her animals because it's in her contract.  She knows where
they come from, what kind of home they're going to and what health they're
in.  The purpose of this is to get them out of a bad situation and into a
better one.  All good for the animal.
 
I've seen her offer to take other ferrets, but she usually doesn't have
much room.  The preferred method is to get the ferrets into a home as
quickly as possible - so others are contacted and usually someone along the
way picks up the homeless ferret and there's no need for the ferret to even
go to Judy's.
 
Why would anyone take in a bunch of strange ferrets with no known history
and mix them with breeding stock?  Oh wait..  You're the one that breeds
for mutts and the "all powerful super ferret"... Whatever.
 
And if you're looking for a well-built, sweet-tempered ferret... I
certainly would head right on over to Judy's!  She's not adding to the
shelter population because she'll take her kids back!  If that's not
responsible, I don't know what is!
 
Kudos to Judy..  Although I doubt she's reading the list anymore (WSFA
list).
 
Edward, get it together please.
 
- Megan
 
http://students.washington.edu/~mdahlem/furo/
I'm out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message...
[Posted in FML issue 2742]