Regarding the situation of Santiago Lugo and his ferret, I called Theresa
Paoloni this morning and had a good discussion with her and with her
assistant for perhaps a half hour.
 
The bottom line is Santiago Lugo now has his ferret, and he does not have to
pay money.  The situation is *resolved*.
 
This ends up being a he-said she-said situation, as Theresa and Santiago
have different and contradictory stories.  Essentially, Theresa says
Santiago *never* owed more than $242.50 (and that there was a quote for more
but that was for *proposed* services which were never performed after
Santiago declined them), and they had his ferret for a few nights only.  As
we already heard, Santiago says Theresa said he owed more than $242.50 (the
$700 figure he cited earlier) and was keeping his ferret until payment, and
never offered him a payment plan (while she said she did offer such).
 
From Theresa's point of view, Santiago paid a deposit of $100 for a quote
and work of $242.50, and she has *forgiven* the remaining $142.50 because
she knows Santiago would have difficulty paying this, and because money is
not the issue.
 
Since I do not know either of these people, I do not know who to believe and
it *does not matter* at this point.  We heard Santiago's story first, but
when I called Theresa she was warm, caring, reasonable, calm, and
compassionate.
 
Since Theresa explained to me that she takes in and treats a lot of injured
or stray animals, cares about animals, and since she seems to like ferrets
very much, I offered the address of the ferret mailing list, and for her to
join.  If she takes this offer and we see her on this list I would plea for
everyone to give her a warm (or at least neutral) welcome as an ally (DVM,
too) and ignore the past conflicting stories -- since you do not *know* what
actually happened in this case (unless you are one of the two parties
involved).
 
Lessons from this, or general observations/wishes:
 
(1) When dealing with officials, calmly get the facts (or at least the
claims being made).  If you have a situation where a party remains
steadfastly and clearly in opposition, as for example is the case with the
California departments of Fish and Game and Health, then is the time to
decide to battle or escalate the battle (while remaining calm and rational).
 
(2) While we like each other very much on this list, and are predisposed to
believe and defend each other, we actually have no idea who may appear on
this list, and we can't always ascertain the truth in a given situation (as
I believe we cannot in this case) -- in light of that, the best approach is
to get the facts calmly (as in 1 above) and *resolve the situation if
possible*, rather than making something unnecessarily charged or political.
 
(3) The list obviously pulls together.  Though we are all individual and I
do not want to introduce "political correctness" to this list, it would be
an even more powerful force if we can for the most part present a
consistent, clear position in our interactions with people not on the list,
if we can welcome new people as potential allies and as people who belong to
this list as much as we do (unless it is clear they are not and do not), and
try to avoid highly emotional interactions with people, preferring instead
strong, rational, intellectual, calm argument and sound grasp of the facts
of cases which interest us and a grasp of our alternatives and proper
escalation.
 
Todd Cromwell, Dors and Seldon, WA State
[Posted in FML issue 2019]