With ferrets, as with any other cause worth fighting for, the absolute best thing you can do is start out being as well educated as possible. Making statements based on something someone told you, based on something someone told them, etc., without researching and making sure that statement is accurate only hurts the cause. A good example is saying that there has never been a reported case of rabies in ferrets. This sounds good, sheds a very positive light on ferrets, but is entirely untrue. There absolutely have been documented cases of rabies in domestic ferrets. These cases are few and far between, probably number under 10 since 1974. Domestic ferrets have a pretty limited risk of exposure to rabies, who's largest possibility of transmission would be from wild animals. (Please note, these stats are specific to the US. The UK may be an entirely different animal, as it were, as domestic ferrets are regularly used as hunting animals, so have a greater risk of exposure to rabies.) In any case, I haven't found any documented cases of a human contracting rabies from a ferret bite, so that might be true, but ferrets can and do get rabies, which is why it is so important to keep yours current on their vaccinations. This post is not meant as a reproach to the person who made the statement about ferrets and rabies. It is simply a correction, meant with the best intentions, and a reminder that we must be sure we are armed with as much accurate information as possible when defending our furry friends. Melissa Rotert Samurai, the lonely one Missing Booboo, Cael, Tasha, Nietzsche, Robin, Mira and O'Dell, who joined the others at the bridge the day before Christmas [Posted in FML issue 4379]