>From:    M H <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: MEDIOCRE HOMES ARE ACCEPTABLE???
 
I highly resent your tone.  Yoiu are making very bad assumptinos and using
emotionally charge accusations rather than intellectually discussing this
issue.
 
>HELLO!?!  A ferret shelter is NOT a prison
 
Well actually sort of it is.  Ferrets in cells/cages.  They can't leave
when they want to.  They sit and wait to be paroled/adopted.  That was an
emotionally charged accusation.  I never said that shelters were prisons.
They more resemble orphanages.  Would you like to live in an orphanage
when a reasonable family wanted to adopt you but couldn't because of some
rule set down from on high?
 
>How DARE you suggest that a shelter operator let a ferret go to live in
>a mediocre home?!?
 
YO!!!!!!!  We have run a shelter for longer than many of those who brag on
every ferret they rescue to this list!
 
Sorry.  I just get real tired of people who forget about that bit of
information inconvinient to those who like to put me as opposed to
shelters in general.  As our friends in NC pointed out, not all shelters
are the same.  BUT they are still not in a home, just waiting to go to
one.  When they get into a home they will have a chance to get more
personal treatment.  Sheer numbers force that to be the case despite all
the efforts of shelter owners.  By and large most people are good.  That
carries over into almost all subclasses, so most shelter people are good.
But like with human orphans a real home is far better than limbo.
 
>Would you let any of your ferrets go live in a home where you weren't
>sure of the conditions?
 
Yes.  Every ferret ever adopted out really has gone through that.  We
as shelter operators can only guess what happens when we are not there
at ANY house.
 
>How would you sleep knowing that your ferret was possibly unvaccinated,
>eating poor quality food, or being neglected?
 
At every shelter I've visited there were times when there were som many
ferrets that they WERE neglected.  Poor things.  Orphanages have by and
large been frowned on in this country for people.  They aren't better for
ferrets.
 
And perhaps you should think that I didn't say a "bad" home did I?
 
You are using rather bad descriptions to define merely mediocre.
 
>Would you have a clear conscience if you found out that the ferret
>you released into a mediocre home had been bounced from home to home
>to home, no longer wanted?
 
Every shelter that has been around long enough can tell you times this
has happened.  Even with screening.
 
>and now fearful of humans?
 
A ferret wouldn't reach this state from living in an average home.  Lets
discus what I said only.  I didn't say adopt out ferrets to the evil rich
folks that pick their pets based on their current decor or the trashy
folks that keep getting more dogs when their old ones freeze in the
winter.  That would hardly be average or mediocre would it?
 
>Ferret shelters are run mostly out of a deep love for ferrets
 
Do you speak fom experience here?  You didn't use a name, just initials on
a hot mail account that could merely be "mediocre home".
 
Too often those of us in the 'shelter biz' have to deal with cleaning up
after shelters that took in dozens and dozens of ferrets, unable to find
anyone that that met their 'high' standards of life for ferrets until it
reached the point that the ferrets would have been better off almost
anywhere else.  This has happened in ALL geographical areas in the
country.  Haven't heard about one yet this month.
 
I do speak from years of experience.
 
bill
--
bill and diane killian
zen and the art of ferrets
http://www.zenferret.com/
mailto:[log in to unmask]
[Posted in FML issue 2859]