My oh my, where do I start?
 
Well, my husband won't let me into Petcos anymore since I always end up
embarrassing him.  The poor ferrets rarely have food or fresh water in
their enclosure and the litter boxes and 1/4 of the enclosure's floor is
covered with poop and pee to the point where there are always at least
a dozen flies hanging out, leaving their larvae laid in the poop arena
to compound the problem.  I always make whoever I can find clean the
enclosure immediately, not caring what they think of me or the "stink"
I'm publicly creating in their store.  This is what embarrasses my
husband, but SOMEONE has to look out for theses poor fuzzballs!  The
ferrets themselves never have properly trimmed nails, which we all know
is horrible for them, and I doubt that Petco actually bathes the little
buggers EVER, even on intake.
 
One day, after making someone clean the enclosure, I was told that they
had a kit upstairs that had just been separated from his brother and as
such, couldn't be sold.  What was to become of him?  After giving the
husband the "come on, have a heart" eyes, he agreed that we could go
upstairs to check him out.  My word, I really wish I hadn't been brought
upstairs to see the conditions of all the animals up there.  The smell
came first and if it's any consolation, there was one employee actually
attending to poop duty.  We were taken over to the kit's cage and the
little guy must have been 3 months old or so.  He was still pretty small
but he smelled something fierce (not that comforting ferret musk, mind
you), his nails were almost an inch long, and he had an obvious eye
infection.  He couldn't even open his eye all of the way due to the puss
factor.  His cage had no water left in the bottle and his litter box
looked like it hadn't been cleaned in weeks.  He also had quite a biting
problem and we soon discovered he was deaf.
 
Well, this was too much for me and fortunately my husband loves me enough
that he let me take "Kiba " home to our other 2 carpet sharks.  Petco
was more than happy to be rid of him and the responsibility, but not one
employee could answer basic ferret questions, which was my own personal
pass or fail test.  (What do they eat and how often, is he vaccinated,
is he neutered, is he male or female).  Needless to say, Petco fails
the ferret care test big time.  I filed a complaint with the ASPCA, but
never found out if anything was resolved or even investigated.
 
From that point on, I found a mom-and-pop pet store and I order as much
of my ferret paraphanelia as possible from shelter moms or other crafty
souls on-line.  Maybe the ferret community together can do something,
but apparently one girl in NJ isn't enough for anyone to care.
 
Happily, Kiba is doing great and is now the only fuzzy in the house who
gives kisses willingly (and for 15 minutes at a time!)  Already having a
deaf ferret in the fuzzy family, we overcame that hurdle easily and he
hasn't bit anyone since the first week he was brought home and hosed
down.
 
Scary, isn't it?
 
"War does not determine who is right, War determines who is left..."
[Posted in FML issue 5112]