Okay, Everyone has been very kind to me about my situation with Garcia. I have appreciated all your understanding. I did not want to make a comment on the "Molly: Blind Ferret" issue because I didn't want to sound like a hipocrite. However, I am not a hipocrite because I admited my own faults of not being strong enough to deal with Garcia and therefore went to great lengths to find him a good home that could deal with him. The fact that I couldn't deal with Garcia's aggression and his stubborn attempts to not use the litter box affected all my ferrets and myself and so I acknowledged that he had a quality of life but just needed to be with someone that could deal with his habits. Now, I wasn't going to make any statement about Molly until I once again was confronted with it on the FML by an editorial today. The editor once again echoed "no quality of life" and I paraphrase: no reason to live that way. I don't have a blind ferret, (I have a blind goldfish does that count? just kidding) but from what people say, they go by a stronger sense of smell so I'd imagine, if a litter box is nearby, they will find it by smell, and they find their food, and if furniture stays the same, they remember their way around like most all blind animals and people. Are there problems other than they don't play "normal" or don't play like mainstream ferrets play? As her letter seemed to say this was her biggest reason for deciding to put Molly down. If there is more stress to it than just that....please enlighten me and I will apologize for taking her trouble with Molly so lightly. My ferret Willow is a special needs ferret with brain damage. She is also my most well behaved ferret. She is slow in just about everything she does and mostly watches my other ferrets play and so on. Once in awhile she joins in and whole heartedly but only after studying (as if having to remember all over again how to play). My Liam, a healthy, smart, and "normal" ferret, also hardly ever joins in with the others to play. He sniffs around the house constantly on his own. Or he approaches his little rubber ball and bats it back and forth against the corner of the wall (i'm serious about that, it;s so cute). He could care less about my other ferrets most the time. Does that make him abnormal and not deserve to live? (note: this statement is trying to say that because a ferret doesn'[t play normal, doesn't mean it doesn't have quality to live). Okay, most of us on this list spend or would spend a condsiderable amount of money to keep our ferrets alive and healthy and happy. Sometimes over $1,000, as if these were our human children. For many, this is all they can have as children. So that being said: to say that a being that is blind has no quality in life really strikes a very annoying chord every time. Would you put a child to sleep with the excuse that it has no quality of life? No, because you would explore many options, like finding it a home that takes care of blind children for example. And you would do this with the honest statement "I couldn't handle it. This child has quality of life but I am not able to give it to them." This is the same for a pet. Putting a pet to sleep may be the answer for your problem, but you should say it is because you couldn't handle it, not that the animal has no purpose or reason to live. Many memebers of this FML have blind ferrets and love them, and give them a reason to live. In another way of looking at this, if you spend this much money saving ferrets and if you give as much love to your ferret as I know we all give...what separates a blind ferret from a blind person that you also love. (Just a note, I'm not talking about the decision to put a ferret down, but using the statement "no quality of life" as a cop out and not the true reason) I hope this makes sense. My main point is, although I understand a blind ferret must be difficult who can't play with the other ferrets normally because he can't see them...if your blind child cannot see and doesn't play with other children, does that mean he/she has no quality of life? I know that the ferret/child comparison may be stretching the parallels of human and animals but this concept is the same....why do humans have quality of life when blind but ferrets not? Blind Ferrets have it easy if you ask me. I don't condem the owner's choice of putting her down because that is none of my business nor was I in her shoes. That choice is personal. Giving Garcia up was my personal choice and that hurt to do it. I don't know if I could deal with a blind ferret but I would not say that his life is worthless and has no quality nor did I say Garcia's life was worthless because he couldn't act normal and took extra work...just honestly say that you can't deal with the ferret's blindness. That is the truth. That the ferret has no quality of life is NOT true. It may make you sound and look bad but it's the truth and that is always accepted. Peace, Julia and her spiteful ferrets [Posted in FML issue 3566]