This weekend, a reputable vet wanted to surrender a ferret she found last week to me. I asked her to please ADV test the ferret for me. She said "Well, ADV is not in Canada" So, I asked her, "Do you test for ADV regularly?". After a long silence on the phone, she said "No". "So, how can you say ADV is not in Canada if you are not testing for it on a regular basis" I asked. "Good point" she concluded. I've been yelling at vets and ferret lovers for years to take ADV seriously in Ontario. I've been testing my ferrets since 2000, ALL of them. I've been trying to educate my members, my volunteers, my ferret friends. I have felt like i have been screaming on deaf ears for many years - felt like no one took me seriously. Once even had a reputable ferret vet tell me "ADV is no big deal Randy. Ferrets can live long, happy lives with it". My jaw hit the ground - I was speechless..... Well, now we have a confirmed case of it in Ontario. I chatted with one of my vets about it. She was speechless..... The owner of the Niagara Falls, Ontario ferret wishes to remain nameless. She doesn't want to be ostracized or poked at. She is scared, just finding out today her ferret has ADV. She was lucky she found out her ferret has ADV. She was NEVER going to test. Why did she test? She wanted to visit our shelter and our policy is to have people test their ferrets before allowing them to come into our shelter. Why wasn't she going to test? Because it is VERY expensive to test in this country!!!!! For instance, one vet in Toronto (I will not mention names in this post) will charge up to $180 to send 1 blood test to United Vaccine for a CEP test (the one that we recommend). The same vet will charge $240 to send blood off to Vita Tech for another ADV test (not sure which one). All of this and it doesn't include the cost of the office visit which is another $60 PLUS tax!!!!! The reason for this is quite simple i'm told. BOARDER crossing with biohazards. Blood is a biohazard, therefore, it costs a lot more to fill out paperwork and overnight post blood across the boarder to the USA for testing. Other ferret vets i called had not even heard of the United Vaccine test. They were still thinking our University did tests (which wasn't a CEP test and produced many false positives in the past). Our University stopped doing ADV tests about 2 years ago. SO, I called the University and asked them where they sent the tests (had heard a rumor they were sending to a Canadian lab that did CEP tests) and chatted with the head of virology. Seems that there has been an increased concern among the fur industry about ADV in Canada (humm....) and this has encouraged our University to look into CEP testing for ADV. Well, either way, we'll learn more about the CEP tests this week. The head virologist was wonderful and is very keen on learning more about the disease and how it effects the ferret. Though he says it will cost the consumer more to test (because it's a pet) he is willing to work with us. Hopefully this will be good news for us Canadians and will encourage more of us to test our ferrets. PLEASE, i can not stress enough to my fellow Canadian ferret lovers that we do not live in a bubble and that the boarder between the USA and Canada is not a barricade, it's an invisible line that ADV can (and now HAS been proven to) cross. PLEASE, test your ferrets. Help prevent the spread of ADV by knowing if your ferret is infected. If you have any questions or would like to know the status of the CEP test availability, please contact me [log in to unmask] Miss Randy Melanie Belair President The Ferret Aid Society www.ferretaid.org Join us for the IFC Ferret Aid 2006 Conference! Book early, almost 1/2 sold out!! http://www.ferretaid.org/events/ferret_aid_2006.html [Posted in FML issue 5034]