Briefly on the DM issue, Ohio's laws are designed to protect an agricultural climate. I'm no longer a resident of Ohio, despite living there about half the time, so I doubt I could accomplish much trying to originate any legislation to improve situations, and am not sure how much could even be done. My vet in Florida told me that since Florida is also considered an agricultural state (pro farmer) it is even legal for me to perform surgery on my own animal. Legal does not equal wise. On the dentals, it isn't difficult to learn to scrape your own ferret's teeth, if you have someone to show you how a few times and you have a little help. I used to do our shelter ferrets all the time, but I also had a good volunteer that would stabilize the ferret while I scraped and used a swab to polish a bit. As for anesthesia, I have two 6 1/2 year olds who have pretty advanced heart disease. Both are on huge doses of furosemide. Both had horrible dental issues. After having my vet examine them and discussing their situation, we opted to use a painkiller (buprenorphine) which is placed on the gums for comfort, not do a full dental but only go in and scrape what we could to further evaluate dental problems, and wake them up. They were only 'out' deeply enough to relax them while the technician worked, and when they started to come out of it, a little more ISO was used until they were finished. Neither ferret required extractions, both were left on amoxi to minimize infection, and both recovered well and felt great having had their mouths 'fixed'. Excessive tartar can cause ulcers in the cheeks, called kissing ulcers' and be very painful. This was not perfect, but a compromise that was good for both ferrets. It's also important to realize dental disease is hard on the heart. Just my take on the subjects, Julie Julie Fossa West Central Ohio Ferret Shelter http://www.wcofs.org International Ferret Congress http://ferretcongress.org/ [Posted in FML 5532]