If this came across as a flame it was not my intention. Please accept my apologies. I am claiming sleep depravation over Ben as my excuse for not better wording the post. I believe Kim Fox helped better word it. I know that shelter Mom & Dad do beg, crawl and grovel-they go beyond the call of duty. My question then is when there are smaller shelters that are overloaded and basically do not have the funds to provide all the surgeries needed that week what do you do? For example, what if you have a 6+ yr old female who has already had insolinomia and now needs another surgery, but in the same week you have 3 other ferrets ages 2-3yrs old and they also need surgery and your veterinarian has said that all are as equally urgent. You have exhausted all of your funds and are limited so you can only afford to do 3 of the surgeries. In addition you have other ferrets coming in the following week possibly from another shelter or as a rescue that will need surgery. So back to the original question, who gets the surgeries? I am sure this is an ongoing situation in many shelters and I am curious what you would do in a situation such as what I have stated. Kat, again my apologies if I flamed-was not my intention. Lisa & her 24 paws [Posted in FML issue 4172]