This touched my heart so much. As some of you may recall, I was on the
verge of having to give my boys Ozzy and Mogli up about 4 months ago. I
had broken off a relationship with a man who was willing to put up with
my boys and had to move back in with my dad and stepmother. The ferrets
were a huge point of contention for a while since my stepmother was
worried that they would stink up the house and destroy everything.
Luckily for me, I was able to convince her otherwise and was able to
keep my little monsters.

Reading this post reminded me of just how blessed I am to have a
supportive family that is willing to put up with me and my little
rascals until I get my degree and am able to be on my own. I honestly
don't know what I would do without them in my life and thank what
higher power there is for every day I have with them. Even the thought
of giving them up brings tears to my eyes so I can only imagine how
heart wrenching it would be to watch a precious fuzzy get sick and
skinny while struggling to make ends meet. I can only commend the
Stephens family for finally realizing that they had to let go of their
babies for the good of the human children as well as the fur kids. Just
the fact that they held on as long as they did really says something
about their character. Many people would have sold their ferrets the
second things looked a little rough.

I also wanted to add a note about shelters: Since part of my agreement
with my parents is that I do not add to my business until I can afford
it on my own, I compensate my offering my time to Oregon Ferret Shelter
as often as I can. For those that live near Portland, OFS currently has
over 200 rescue ferrets (not including the Mathis' private bred babies)
so every helping hand counts. If you can take some extra time, help
with cleaning cages is the best thing you could do (short of donating)
for the shelter. There are currently only 3 volunteers (excluding Chris
Mathis) that regularly come in to clean cages and it normally takes
anywhere from 3 to 6 hours a day, twice a week to get everything done.

[Posted in FML 6535]