Hello everyone!  This is what i sent to the Mississauga News tonight.
Hope it puts a smile on your face.  Finally, i have a happy ending to a
story for a change.
 
I never thought in a million years that when I called the fire department
tonight to help rescue a trapped ferret that they would come.  I was
TOTALLY wrong.
 
I volunteer for a group called the Ferret Aid Society.  I have done so
for over 11 years.  Tonight another volunteer and I participated in a
search for a ferret that had been missing for five days in an apartment
building.  He was found, trapped inside a wall, a floor below where he
lived.  He had escaped his home through a bathroom drain/vent and into
the apartment below.  He somehow made it into the wall and couldn't get
out.
 
When I arrived at the building with the other volunteer, we had no idea
how we were going to get this little one out of the wall.  Jokingly I
looked at Olympia, the other volunteer with me and said I was going to
call the fire department.  Then I thought, why not?  The worst they could
say was "no".  To my surprise, not only did the fire department come to
aid us, they were more than willing to come to the aid of the trapped
ferret in the wall!
 
When they arrived at the apartment building, I was so relieved.  I
thought this would be over and the little ferret who was trapped in the
wall for five days would finally be safe.  I was horrified when the
superintendent for the building came out, yelling that we could not cut
any holes in the wall to save any animal!  He sent the fire department
away telling them he would hold the city liable if they helped us get
the ferret to safety.
 
Not knowing what to do next, I called the Ontario Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.  A wonderful Agent assured me that she
had the power to make the rescue of the ferret happen and that she was
on her way to help us out.  I called the fire department back and was
told that they would be more than happy to assist us when the SPCA Agent
arrived.  Because it was the middle of the night, it would take the Agent
a couple hours to arrive.
 
At about midnight, with the help of the SPCA and three of Mississauga's
finest Firemen, a scared, very dehydrated and hungry little ferret was
cut out of a wall of an apartment building.  I never got the names of
these brave men but they all deserve a gold star, purple heart, blue
ribbon or whatever you give a fireman who does a good deed.  They may all
be giggling tonight as they go home to their wives and girlfriends, but
in my books they are all heroes.  They saved a life tonight, even though
it was a tiny one.  Thank you Mississauga's finest firemen.
 
Miss Randy Melanie Belair
President
The Ferret Aid Society
<http://www.ferretaid.org/>
 
Join us for the IFC Ferret Aid 2006 Conference!
Book early, almost sold out!!
http://www.ferretaid.org/events/ferret_aid_2006.html
[Posted in FML issue 5135]