Promise - last post for the evening!
 
It is with very mixed feelings that I announce that after almost 15
years in existence, FACT took in our 1000th ferret into the shelter
yesterday.......
 
We don't even have a name for her as yet.  But she is an older adrenal
ferret that was left on the doorstep of one of CT's less affluent
communities - in a box, with a note "Please Help Me."
 
I wish there were fewer ferrets over the years..... I also wish there
were more.  I know there were more that needed help.  We've tried.
 
There is so much frustration and guilt with not being able to take every
ferret that someone wants to surrender into the shelter.  How do you
support the owner?  Are they someone who you "gut feel" is going to toss
the animal out the back door?  How do you know?  Who is honest in their
need?  Who cares?
 
Sadly, a shelter sometimes has to push back on a surrendering owner who
cares about their pet.  We need to support them, help them place their
pet!  They live 80 miles away!  They have a better adopter base locally
than we do!  Our adopter base has been tapped!  :)
 
But we need to push back on "good owners" because there are so very many
for whom their owner DOESn't care.  We have to have space for these who
are abandoned by the heartless.  For those who drop their pet and run.
For those without options.  For that 1000th ferret left on a doorstep.
We need the space for them.
 
With sincere thanks to everyone who has supported FACT financially
and, as importantly, emotionally over the years.  Vanessa, our shelter
direcotor, our Board of Directors and Advisory Board, but mostly the
ferrets themselves thank you from the bottom of our hearts!  Each of you
will be overwhelmed with bouncing, hopping, leaping (but not POOPING!)
ferrets when you arrive at the Rainbow Bridge.
 
Ann Gruden
President, Ferret Association of CT, Inc.
FACT
[Posted in FML issue 5023]