Hi All
 
I am angry enough to spit nails.  I was innocently browsing the web for,
what else, ferret stuff.  Well, I used Web crawler & typed in Ferrets for my
search criteria.  The second set of articles came up with one that was
titled Pet s & Small Children .  I thought, hmmm, that looks interesting .
So I selected the site.  The site is parentsplace.com, where you can post
questions that will be answered by doctor s .  Trust me, I use the term
doctor, in this context very loosely.
 
The question was from a man concerned about his daughter who is pregnant &
due in March 97.  He stated that his daughter has 4 ferrets, 2 rats, and 2
cats (she sounds like my kind of person).  He goes on to state that his
daughter, according to him, is a lousy house keeper.  She lets the ferrets
run loose alot, and tries to mask the smell of animal feces with air
freshener.  We have all been there, right?  ( It sounds to me, like dad is a
real busy body in the first place.  ).
 
Well the doctor goes on to state that, yes animals can bring in many
diseases such as ring worm, scabies, cat scratch fever, rat bite fever,
gastrenomical infections, respiratory infections, and strep throat.  He
states, that the bigger concern is the trauma that pets may inflict on
children.  He say s that cat s are more docile, but because their teeth are
more pointed, bite s are more likely to become infected.  He the states that
dog s should be supervised when around children.  Here come s the banger,
ferret s, according to the Web doctor, have an unpredictable demeanor {don t
ALL pet s??}.  There have also been MANY reports of severe facial injuries
due to unprovoked attacks by ferrets on infants.  Wha?  What reports?  Where
are these reports?  How come I have never seen these reports??  He also says
there is no good rabies vaccine for ferrets.
 
He closes by stating that pet s be immunized , and not be allowed free roam
around the child.  This is especially true for ferrets!  What!!! Isn t it
equally important for cat s!  And dog s!
 
Please, e-mail these people.  I sent them a message, but there are others out
there that can be much more convincing than me when I am angry!
 
The article site is :
http://www.parentsplace.com/readroom/web_doc/drweb128.html
 
Adrienne
[Posted in FML issue 1725]