Thanks for your thank you, John. LOL! I am glad I could help with that info and the URLs. Mike's and Debbie's articles at Miamiferret on the topic are just plain excellent! Always highly recommended! Sybil, has the ferret been exposed to more hours of light in the last month or so? That will do that. It sounds like the guard hairs have blown and a new undercoat is coming in. To give a feeling for when to jump see the articles mentioned before like http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/adrenal.htm and also see ones like http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/basics.htm I had someone ask me if it is good idea for me to reveal as much of myself as I do on the FML. I don't know; it's just habit. In the earlier years it was a small enough community that we all knew all sorts of things about each other and aided each other on a personal level as well as in relation to ferrets so knowing that problems have solutions was just part of what we shared. When they didn't we provided shoulders. There was spell back then when a young member's adult sister was in a horrid car accident where she was wearing only a lap belt but no shoulder belt and was in the back seat. For quite some time there were digests which were devoted to a large extent to helping her get through it. That can't happen these days; the FML is too large. But if personal notes remind people that a lot of hard things in life can be gotten through or just become a lived-with part of life then that is kindness that can help some people. To a large extent we all learn to live life by learning how others get through things. Bob recently taught FML people to take proper care in relation to not overdoing sun exposure and getting skin checked, and i recently reminded people to get their eyes checked and that treatments that are comfortable and easy exist for glaucoma. If his words or mine help just one person (and I do know that someone went and got an eye exam finally, and suspect he also heard from people who helped themselves, too) then they perform a public service, and that is what it is all about at times. Anyway, point taken, and it was a good one once I thought more about it. The FML is larger and has changed, and I guess even old farts like me with our ingrained old fart habits need to change along with it. It's not small with an extremely constant membership any longer, is it? Good in some ways, sad in others. So, now I get to try to remind myself... I guess there also will be those wondering what happened when I lost my temper, so I might as well forestall any inaccurate speculation (another off-list tip I got -- and thanks for it because I tend to usually assume the best of people -- in ferret forums at least -- but that doesn't always happen). Well, what I did was shaped specifically to the person who caused the response. To some others it may seem like nothing at all, but for him it certainly was a very big deal. I had someone write an article (full of false statements about states and rabies policies) and put MY name on it as if I had written it. He really snubbed his nose at me and refused to remove it, taunted me even, and when I threatened to sue he said they had no money anyway so he didn't care. I had to warn people on the FML that the article was a fake and then I heard from a number of people he had done the exact same thing to -- some being badly hurt by it. I looked into him further and hit on the idea of a suit in which he would have to do public service in my state, not his, and live at his own expense as suggested punishment -- no money to us. That concept actually bothered him badly enough to get "my" article removed. Then I went the extra step and told every single person I had heard from whom he had hurt exactly what worked, and told them to feel free to tell anyone else they knew whom he had hurt that way. You never saw a website and behavior change so fast in your life. Did anyone actually have to or choose to press suit? I don't know. I do know that his website remained for a year or so then went away and stayed away, so maybe someone did, or maybe not. Do I care, or do I feel bad for him? Nope. He deserved exactly what he got and it was all legal and never posed any risk to any innocent beings whether two footed or four footed. Personally, I think it was the perfect solution even though it took some work to come up with it because it bothered him deeply enough to permanently stop the behavior that was hurting people, and it achieved its goal with no one else hurt and with a lot of good people helped. Did I care if his website remained or not? No, as long as he didn't abuse people. Is he someone I will ever trust? Nope. Will I say who he is? Nope. He learned his lesson so that is that; most people do in life at some point or other if those individuals do too many nasty things to people. Last night and today some private conversations cleared up some confusion and incorrect accusations that had been made. That feels good and right. Too bad they were not just asked privately in the first place, but it is good that they appear to be settled now, at least I sure hope that they are. -- Sukie (not a vet) Ferret Health List co-moderator http://www.smartgroups.com/groups/ferrethealth FHL Archives fan http://ferrethealth.org/archive/ replacing http://fhl.sonic-weasel.org International Ferret Congress advisor http://www.ferretcongress.org [Posted in FML issue 5166]