Hi all,
 
The back-and-forth on the MF issue has, to me anyway, been civil and I've
learned a lot, from Danielle but also from other people's obseravtions.
This has been a good experience and I hope it continues in the same civil
and courteous way it's been going.  Despite the fact that it's an
oft-brought-up subject, it's still a valuable discussion piece, at least
in my opinion.  I wouldn't mind seeing a continued discussion or an
ongoing sharing of ideas if it stays respectful.
 
I do not know Sandi from Washington but I confess to being unsure why she
decided to start making a personal attack on Danielle using the FML,
her first post being some sort of vague disclaimer about how Danielle has
no connection with shelters, I imagine intended to make other FMLers
discredit anything Danielle said.  Whether this is true or not I don't
see how Danielle's efforts to forge a working relationship with MF in the
interest of making things better for ferrets is affected by whether or not
she's directly affiliated with a shelter.  I must admit on a personal
level to being quite offended by Sandi's post of yesterday, which seemed
to imply that if you don't do active sheltering or fostering, you can't
really count yourself among the friends of ferrets.  Danielle answered
back to Sandi's initial attack and it's escalated from there.
 
Again, I don't see the point of trying to discredit someone just based on
the fact that they have no shelter affiliation that you know of.  I am
not affiliated with a specific shelter myself, and I do not do fostering
in my home.  I don't feel that this automatically rules me out as a ferret
advocate, or gives someone the right to say that I do nothing for ferrets.
My work consists of educating, in the hopes that an educated ferret owner
will keep his or her ferret and not dump the responsibility on a shelter.
My work is in writing and circulating a newsletter to promote education
and ferret care and to help tie a community of ferret lovers together.
And in getting on board to work to affect some change at MF for the good
of their ferrets, I hope that less illness and birth defects in ferrets
will also keep some of them out of the shelters (because some are
abandoned due to failing health).  My work is organizing fundraisers to
raise money to support a network of foster homes to take some of the
burden off of shelters, especially when a ferret is old or terminally ill
and needs individual care.  My ferret organization just finished a fund
drive that is enabling us to give a large Christmas donation to the
shelters here in New England.  This may not be as hands-on as fostering
or actively rescuing, but I still feel it earns me some recognition as a
ferret advocate and someone who cares about them enough to devote a good
chunk of spare time to their welfare.
 
Please do no turn the FML into a place to attack another ferret lover on
a very personal level.  Today's comment about "following Danielle into
back-alleys" was not only in poor taste, but it reflected a lot worse on
you than it did on her.  It was one of the most mean-spirited things I've
ever seen on the FML, and it didn't belong here.
 
Disagreements abound in the nationwide community of ferret-loving humans.
I won't claim that every single one of my interactions with other ferret
owners and ferret rescuers has been all about hugs and puppies.  But to
get really dirty and insulting benefits no one, least of all the ferrets.
Even in some of the worst squabbles I've been in with other ferret
advocates and ferret groups, we have managed to work together on the most
important of issues...the small fuzzy people we all ultimately would give
just about anything for.
 
-Heather
[Posted in FML issue 3632]