Hi All: I am a volunteer at Gimmee Shelter Ferret Rescue in Massachusetts. Jan, the shelter Mom is both a nurse and has been trained as a veterinary technician. She thought she heard of a program , maybe through the ASPCA, that would certify shelter operators to provide euthanasia. To be clear, this is NOT for healthy ferrets, we are a NO KILL shelter. In the past 3 weeks we have lost 4 ferrets. The shelter is no where near a 24 hour vet, and the vet we use cannot always come to the office after hours. This question came up again two nights ago. One of Jan's own fuzzies, Tikki, began seizing. She was 8 years old, and luckily we were there. We tried massaging her gums with a sugar solution, and Jan gave her subcutaneous fluids. She stopped convulsing, but stayed in the seizure. Her breath had a very strong urine smell and we assumed that she was in kidney failure. We held her, comforted her, and kept her warm. Several hours later, she passed away. She did not appear to be in pain. However,another ferret, Winkin-Blinkin, had a severe seizure the previous week and could not be brought out of it (seemed to be a major neurologic episode, not an insulinoma reaction). She appreared to Jan to be suffering and after hours arrangements were made with the vet's office to put her to sleep. Luckily, they were available. If the vet was not available, it would have meant hours of needless suffering. We are looking into providing eutahnasia as a last resort to prevent this, and only when a vet is not available. Rudy, another of Jan's older ferrets, passed after being ill for a while, and we also lost another foster ferret so it's been a heartbreaking last couple of weeks. On the positive side, we adopted out Chocolate and Godiva (I posted about them a few weeks ago) and a pair of young albino males. Currently, we have a young single albino male up for adoption. We also have another pair of fairly young males, Yogi and BooBoo. They are being treated for stomach ulcers presently and are coming along and gaining weight (they were in a neglect situation). How do other shelters handle these situations? If anyone has any info or suggestions, please email Jan or myself. Jan can be contacted through the website: www.gimmeeshelter.org. Thank you in advance. Leanne O'Neil [Posted in FML issue 4414]