This has been posted on other list by me but i thought that some of you may like to read it I have been giving some thought to rescued ferrets and to the many people I have started off with ferrets. Going back in time before Artis Pet Sanctuary was formed and we had no such thing as a ferret show, I used to go to events exhibiting other species like rabbits, cavies, rats and other rodents, the ferrets came along as a display along with some of the more exotic rodents like Jird=92s and Multimammite mice, so that I could get the people who owned these other species interested in some thing different. All of the people I meet at these event had heard the negative side of ferrets, so by meeting my ferrets some fell in love with them. My way of introducing potentially new ferret owners who only know the negative side of ferrets rather than the side I am trying to portray interested enough to take on rescued ferrets and also be able to keep showing the animals they started with is to get them to close their eyes and think of a cat, then let them stroke the ferret, if they are thinking cat, once they open their eyes the first words they utter are "Yes it do's remind me of a cat". To get Jean Judd a rat judge who I meet at a show in Surbiton interested enough in starting to keep ferrets, I asked her to think of a large buck rat and after the rat show I went back to Jean's place and we talked more about ferrets, Jean had an empty rabbit which she moved indoors and with the understanding that I would leave one of my ferrets with her over the week end on Monday I got a call asking if she could keep the ferret, I had to say no but that I had another one she could have. In my last conversation with Jean she was rescuing ferrets and rats. Just think about how time fly's that must have been about 25 years ago when Jean got her first ferret. Karen Wilis and her husband I meet in 1973 at a rabbit show in Manchester, Don asked me if I could get his wife interested enough in ferret so that he could keep a couple at home to work them, but as his wife was afraid of them, he was not allowed to keep any. I went over to Karen and asked her to trust and the only though she had to have in her head was about cats, after touching my ferret they went off to deal with the rest of the show. As the day went on Karen came back and this time asked if she could hold the ferret and by the end of the day she had decided that she would like to add a ferret to her collection of animals, but it must be one that would not kill her Angora rabbits. As I knew that all my ferrets were good with rabbits I let her take Prunella home with her on the understanding that I would collect her the following week end. By the following week end she was asking for more, she had told her husband that he had to get his own for working as he may lose Pru. At my last meeting with Karen she was taking in and rehomeing 30 ferrets a year and because of her intrest in ferret she had sold all her Angora rabbits so she could use the hutches for rescued ferrets Vicky I meet at a cavy show. Vicky is another one who had heard the negative side of ferrets, Vicky went on to open a registered charity Artis Pets Sanctuary in Doncaster and has been known to take in and rehome 100 or so ferrets each year When I am in the mood for writing I shall tell you more about the people who I have come across in other fancies who I have got interested in ferrets as a pet http://uk.profiles.yahoo.com/houseferrets13uk Ant / Tony O'Sullivan President/Secretary SMWR inc. NHFA, UK [Posted in FML issue 3632]