Hi everyone I have been reading the FML now for about two weeks and have seen so many stories about deaf ferrets, I know that in America you are used to these kind of problems, here in Holland ferrets have only been sold in pet shops for the last few years and we only started to get the color definitions when pet shops picked up on the popularity of ferrets, about a year ago I took in a ferret because he had started biting and his owner had become to frighten to handle him, I only had him a week before the vet said there was nothing more we could do for him, It broke my hart to see what people will do for money, I wrote this poem for him when I sent his soul to my treasure chest at the end of the rainbow Stephenie Toby Toby was called a harlequin In a pet shop he was sold Toby never even reached the age Of only two years old Toby died all-alone in his dark and quiet brain The last few days he suffered wrapped up in his pain Manipulation of his genes for the want of human kind Had left him deaf from his birth and later left him blind Now if Mother Nature cannot always get The formula correct, right down to the letter What in gods name makes breeders think? That they can do it better Toby paid the price of mans superiority and greed To breed a different color one nature had not decreed He died in pain he could not hear and no longer see Mother nature had not meant for Toby's genes to be Toby died all alone locked in his dark world of pain He would never understand the meaning of gentle hands again Although I tried to help him He was locked up there to stay All I could do for Toby was help him gently on his way Toby was not meant to be [Posted in FML issue 4317]