Remember Lucy Gwin who was being threatened with being thrown out of the Washington Hotel in Washington, PA (as were several people with service dogs) because the hotel owner and manager decided (after letting the handicapped tenants make a lot of improvements with their own personal funds) that they were not going to allow service animals any longer? Lucy Gwin uses ferrets to tell her when she is about to have a grande mal seizure. They do such as great job at it that she is able to take her meds in time to avoid those dangerous seizures. Nor is she the only person who uses ferrets for this task. Now the Bush Administration is planning the change the service animal rules in ways that would ban the use of ferrets as recognized service animals. Ferrets are not the only animals to be banned. The list even includes the primates trained to help people who do not have working hands. This is happening at a time when the aging baby boomers and those with severe injuries from the current wars are increasing the need for service animals. It makes sense to better define WHAT services are performed, but certainly ferrets who allow people to avoid further brain injury from continuing seizures and physical injury from the falls due to such seizures are clearly performing a health function. See: http://reason.com/blog/show/127069.html and <http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/other/121377794413490.xml&coll=2> It does not make sense to limit the type of animal performing the chores, but to instead define better what chores are done. Ferrets can make excellent seizure-alert animals and take to that chore naturally. Sukie (not a vet) Recommended ferret health links: http://pets.groups.yahoo.com/group/ferrethealth/ http://ferrethealth.org/archive/ http://www.afip.org/ferrets/index.html http://www.miamiferret.org/fhc/ http://www.ferretcongress.org/ http://www.trifl.org/index.shtml http://homepage.mac.com/sukie/sukiesferretlinks.html [Posted in FML 6006]