Dear Ferret Folks- In the last few days I think what we've managed to accomplish with the whole Doug McKay business is to demonstrate how extremely unpleasant we can be as a group when we want to be. I've seen vicious, hate-filled posts aimed at the whole McKay family in general, and at one-another specifically. The only person in this whole mess with a lick of sense at all seems to be Doug McKay, who realizes on some level that he can't really take care of his animals anymore. He picked up the phone and tried to start solving the problem, but I think the problem is actually just too big for a quick fix, like he had in mind. He's really got two problems. He can't give the animals the care they need, and he and his family have to *eat*. You can't *eat* ethics. It's a mighty slim meal. I think that is what Bill Killian was trying to point out, but Bill Killian, while he *often* has good points to make, seems to have problems with his volume control knob. It seems to be stuck on "10", when a more neighbourly four to six would do fine, win over more friends and enemies. But that just isn't his way. Whenever he posts to the FML everyone who has ever felt his wrath seems to come out of the woodwork, still stinging from the ordeal. I have to agree with some of the things he said about one of the affidavits on the Doug McKay Rescue Foundation Site. The writer was upset that there were piles of junk on the property. That there was an abandoned trailer on the property. That there was a sheet of ice on the ground, caused because the McKay's had a pipe problem. It was easier to leave the water running at a trickle than it was to fix the system right. (For easier, read cheaper.) The McKays are poor farmers, and like a lot of people who live in poverty, they will fight like hell rather than part with anything that "might be fixable someday" , "might be valuable" , "is perfectly good!" You hear all these excuses from my brethren out here in New England, the "Junk Yankees". There were probably some abandoned cars behind some brush that the affidavit writer simply didn't see. Now, none of this precludes people from owning or breeding ferrets, does it? Poverty isn't a *crime* is it? Is there anyone on the FML with an abandoned trailer? Anyone on the FML with junk on their property? This is a *class* issue, and this is what Bill Killian was saying in the, um...least tactful way possible. I've *been* a poor farmer during one of my many incarnations, and I will never forget the way Yuppies would look at me. But we are not going to solve that on the FML. And pictures? I guarantee you I could go to *any* dairy farm of your choice, take ten photos of my choice, and after you have seen them, you will never eat cheesecake again. But we are not going to solve that on the FML. After the pettiness, mud-slinging, name-calling, bickering, and eye-gouging I've seen over the last week here, I'm very glad that the Mcay Ferrets are out of our collective hands. Alexandra in MA [Posted in FML 5544]