The Rainbow Bridge that leads to ferret Valhalla, the home of the
good/bad/in-between and saintly ferrets, seems to be getting an awful
lot of traffic these days as well as in the past. Ferret survivability,
longevity if you will, is without a doubt less than the longevity of
all other animal pets, bar none. More ferrets go to room temperature
per unit time than any other pet you can name. Is this not true, or
do you, for a fact, know?

Can you cite annual death statistics for other animals, pets or
otherwise? Can anyone on this FML tell me how many ferrets die in
any given year? Given a number, is this number related to obvious
influences that are harmful or overly beneficial? Is there a time span
within a given year that the rate of dying is pronounced, or is the
rate more or less constant over a span of 365 days, every 365 days?

Various diseases of pet ferrets, and there are not all that many, seem
to lead most invariably to lingering suffering and finally merciful
death. There are few ferrets that survive qualified veterinarian
treatment and seem never to return to the robust health vigor of their
youth. Why is this essentially a case study in futility? What is it
that we are doing or not doing that is contributing to such morbidity?

We look first to ourselves as unwitted contributers to ferret
mortality. What is it that we are doing, if anything, to impress upon
our little mustelids, the horrors of disease and death? Do we really
know what harm or good we are doing the ferret? I'd venture to say
that we really don't know diddling squat.

And then look to the ferret itself. What do we have in this animal? We
have the tortured remains of a biological test vehicle that is bred,
no not bred, but more like manufactured, to be a de-sexed, living mass
of guts, skin and fur. This creature is to be used for the benefit of
man, the benefit of making money on a throw-away animal that is to be
killed (if it survives) at the conclusion of its usefulness for drug
testing, for cosmetic research, for practicing the insertion of
tracheal (breathing) tubes down its tiny throat by student nurses, by
surviving or not the injection of any number of toxic fluids into its
body, and who knows all the other tortures it suffers at the hands of
"humanitarian" man, mostly in absolute secrecy from the public and
financed with our tax dollars at universities and drug companies and
private research.

The manufacturing of ferret test vehicles is done on an assembly line.
When the orders are filled, the manufacturing continues unabated. Why?
More money is to be made by providing these de-sexed living masses of
guts, skin and fur, called pet ferrets, to pet stores throughout the
country.

Look at your ferret's right ear, the part of the ear that protrudes
above its skull, called the pinna, and on the backside of the pinna you
may find down in the hairline junction of the pinna and the ferret's
skin two tiny blue tattoo dots. These two blue dots are seen by some of
us as the Augen des Totenkopfen or the eyes of the Nazi Deathshead. The
implication here is that ferrets wearing die Augen des Totenkopfen are
doomed to an early death or a developmental malady that leads most
certainly to an early death.

By very crude comparison consider what your health and longevity might
be were you, say at age one year, to undergo anesthetic-less surgery
to remove you entire reproductive system and a part of the sidewalls
of your large intestine just upstream of your anus. And you experience
this surgery done hurriedly on an assembly line by mal-trained amateur
cutters and slicers. Now this don't sound too good, ja?

Imagine if you will the negative impact such early diminution of basic
hormones and genital factors portends for your future health and
development. Would your growth be stunted? Would your vitality and
assertiveness by dampened? Would you be more than you otherwise would
be had you not been denied the growth factors and genital hormones of
an untouched one year old baby? The answers: Yes, Yes, and Yes.

So I say unto you to look to your own ferret. Do you have a way of
comparing to an untouched ferret your ferrets stunting, your ferrets
lack of vitality and assertiveness. Would you very much like to have
known your ferret's condition and health were he not fixed? If you say
it matters not, then go on your happy way and don't look back. For me,
however, this is a path preferred not taken for the few reasons cited
above.

Can anybody tell me of a listing similar to the FML that speaks only to
the health of ferrets. Is this the so-called Ferret Health List (FHL)?
What's in a name? From what I know of the Ferret Health List, and I
profess not much, I am intrigued by the name, because the FHL deals
with sick ferrets, not really the healthy ferrets. Should the name
be changed to the Ferret Sick List? Also, I may have missed it and
somebody can tell me if true, that no ferret treated as specified on
the Ferret Sick List has died...that all such ferrets have recovered
to vibrant healthy lives. Me thinks that is untrue.

Now for the more important question: What other animals, besides
ferrets, are covered by a Health List? Or as I prefer to call it, a
Sick List. If anybody knows of such a list for other pet animals,
please let me know, because I have never found an animal Health/Sick
List except for the ferret. Doesn't this tell you something? If it
tells me anything it's that ferrets are inherently sickly by
comparison to other pet mammals. I ask for your counter argument.

We provide housing/shelter, we hopefully satisfy all the nutritional
needs, we maintain cleanliness, and we interact with them, seemingly
to both their heart's content and ours. We try to do what we can to
keep them happy and vibrant. All this works...for a time that is far
too short or so it seems.

Within every posting of the FML there is always death, suffering, or
sad commentary about somebody's ferret and the reference to the Rainbow
Bridge being crossed or about to be. We even read of so-called greeters
over on the other side and the lamented throes of sadness professed by
the unhappy owners of sick and/or dying ferrets. Few seem to delight in
their ferret making it to the eternal beauty and peace on the other
side of the bridge at Valhalla. Perhaps most of us are entirely
ignorant of the beauty of the Valhallian legend of the Norsemen and the
inspiring melodies of Richard Wagner's music and drama as portrayed in
the opera, Das Rheingold, to wit:

Now gleaming in the light of the setting sun, Valhalla is visible, and
like a bridge across the valley there rests a glowing rainbow and a
theme of great magnificence is heard. That sounds kinda nice, yes?

Edward Lipinski,
Ferrets North West Foundation.

[Posted in FML 6084]