I hope everyone reads this response, because I think many of you might
be as floored as we were to hear this. At our vets office we saw a
poster that said, "1 in 4 dogs get cancer". What?! Wow, I won't
complain about ferret problems again, that's for sure. I've been very
lucky, because I've only experienced cancer in ferrets three times now.

I wonder if dogs are also prone to non cancerous problems like our
ferrets. When I was a little kid, I had never even MET a dog with
cancer. Ya know? I thought that all of this cancer in our ferrets was
due to years of poor breeding or something. But dogs are having this
problem now too?

It's funny how the animal world seems to be reflecting the human world.
Cancer today in humans is common (I wonder how common?). Is this all
because of our environment? I used to think much of the disease we see
today was strictly because of better medicine enabling everyone/thing
to live longer. But I don't think that is the explanation for most of
it anymore. Because I remember growing up that you always had that
"one" kid in your class ... you know ... the problem one. The one who
could not sit still, had trouble learning and talked too much. ADHD.
Now when you look into a classroom, we have many kids with ADHD and
learning disabilities. A big example of a disorder that we are seeing
much more frequently in modern times is Autism. Autism used to be a
freak occurance (1 in 15,000). Heck, most doctors had never even met
an autistic child in their practice. And I surely don't recall any
students in special ed classes at school walking around flapping their
hands and spinning in circles. You can't say it's because of better
diagnosis because you can't "miss" an autistic child, believe me (many
can't even speak let alone get along in any school early in childhood).

I'm still blown away by this information here ... it was news to us. I
don't think we ferret people are the only ones dealing with a lot of
health issues.

[Posted in FML 5701]