Dear FML Friends,
 
Before Christmas I posted a note asking for information regarding the
proper amount of food a pet store should be feeding ferrets, kits in
particular.  If you recall I mentioned they were only feeding them twice
a day.  A number of you were kind enough to get back to me right away and
confirm what I thought.  That since ferrets have small digestive systems
they need to eat every 3 to 4 hours and essentially the pet store was
starving them.
 
Armed with this information I knew the pet store was not going to listen to
me or my "radical ferret friends".  So I called my vet to ask if I could
use her name when passing this information along.  She not only agreed with
the information my FML friends gave but said she would call the pet store
owner herself and talk to them.  This was more then I expected and worked
out perfectly because here was the correct information coming from a
licensed vet.  (Thank you sooo much for your help Dr. Rudkowski - Allentown
Animal Clinic!!)
 
A day or two later I went back to the pet store to ensure that the owner
was "open" feeding the ferrets.  He was.  I introduced myself and
appologize to the man that I was "somewhat short" with earlier in the week.
As it turned out he was only the manager and the owner was there.  The
owner thanked me for having my vet call him and was glad that I stopped by
again.  He wanted to thank me personally for bring this to his attention.
He said; "you know I've been in this business 20 years and you think you
know everything, and there is always some animal rights radical coming and
telling you how to do your job.  I probably would NOT have listened to you
but since you had a vet call me I double checked with my vet and you are
correct." He also asked me for the name and number of my vet, the website
for ferret central where he can obtain more ferret info and passed the info
along to his wife who runs another pet store in the state.
 
Fortunately this story has a happy ending.  I'm sorry for the ferrets that
have suffered previously but "we" (the ferret community) have made another
small step.
 
I would like to send a special thank you out to those that responded to me
directly and I'm sorry the followup e-mail took so long.  BIG as always
thank you for your dedication.
 
Gina
[Posted in FML issue 2924]