My oh my, where do I start? Well, my husband won't let me into Petcos anymore since I always end up embarrassing him. The poor ferrets rarely have food or fresh water in their enclosure and the litter boxes and 1/4 of the enclosure's floor is covered with poop and pee to the point where there are always at least a dozen flies hanging out, leaving their larvae laid in the poop arena to compound the problem. I always make whoever I can find clean the enclosure immediately, not caring what they think of me or the "stink" I'm publicly creating in their store. This is what embarrasses my husband, but SOMEONE has to look out for theses poor fuzzballs! The ferrets themselves never have properly trimmed nails, which we all know is horrible for them, and I doubt that Petco actually bathes the little buggers EVER, even on intake. One day, after making someone clean the enclosure, I was told that they had a kit upstairs that had just been separated from his brother and as such, couldn't be sold. What was to become of him? After giving the husband the "come on, have a heart" eyes, he agreed that we could go upstairs to check him out. My word, I really wish I hadn't been brought upstairs to see the conditions of all the animals up there. The smell came first and if it's any consolation, there was one employee actually attending to poop duty. We were taken over to the kit's cage and the little guy must have been 3 months old or so. He was still pretty small but he smelled something fierce (not that comforting ferret musk, mind you), his nails were almost an inch long, and he had an obvious eye infection. He couldn't even open his eye all of the way due to the puss factor. His cage had no water left in the bottle and his litter box looked like it hadn't been cleaned in weeks. He also had quite a biting problem and we soon discovered he was deaf. Well, this was too much for me and fortunately my husband loves me enough that he let me take "Kiba " home to our other 2 carpet sharks. Petco was more than happy to be rid of him and the responsibility, but not one employee could answer basic ferret questions, which was my own personal pass or fail test. (What do they eat and how often, is he vaccinated, is he neutered, is he male or female). Needless to say, Petco fails the ferret care test big time. I filed a complaint with the ASPCA, but never found out if anything was resolved or even investigated. From that point on, I found a mom-and-pop pet store and I order as much of my ferret paraphanelia as possible from shelter moms or other crafty souls on-line. Maybe the ferret community together can do something, but apparently one girl in NJ isn't enough for anyone to care. Happily, Kiba is doing great and is now the only fuzzy in the house who gives kisses willingly (and for 15 minutes at a time!) Already having a deaf ferret in the fuzzy family, we overcame that hurdle easily and he hasn't bit anyone since the first week he was brought home and hosed down. Scary, isn't it? "War does not determine who is right, War determines who is left..." [Posted in FML issue 5112]