Jeff Johnston made the comment:
 
"I don't know if anyone has "legal grounds" to resist surrendering their
ferrets for rabies testing following a bite incident."
 
What about the Constitutional right to due process which guarntees that no
governmental agency (even the mighty public helath) can deprive any citizen
of their private property (which includes livestock, working animals, pets,
and other domestic creatures) without going through very prescribed steps to
insure that the action is correct?
 
I have always told people NOT to surrender their pet unless presented with a
valid court order to do so and to demand your rights to hearing every step
of the way.  In the past I have actually backed down an animal control
officer who came to seize a ferret.  In this particular case the animal
control person was told by a police officer to go back and get the proper
paperwork before trying again.
 
I've advocated for quite some time that public health needs to be reminded
that, even in matters of health and the public welfare, they are not
omnipotent and DO have to follow the same rules as any other less powerful
governmental agency.  Or suffer the consequences of their actions.  We
worked on one case where we actually had the city attorney added as a
defendant for presenting false information in his court documents (the same
old public health scare stories about rabies, no vaccine, etc.) The director
of public health, who was being sued, was told to produce his data or be
cited for perjury.
 
Always demand your rights!!  If you don't, you don't have any.  It's as
simple as that.
 
"Nothing should even be implied as law which leads to unjust or absurd
consequences"   Abrahmn Lincoln
[Posted in FML issue 1717]