Ok, To heck with this. I'm not a small shelter. I just didn't want a new ass chewed. I'm Marlene B., here at the Richmond Ferret Rescue League. We have 5 "Foster", aka shelter locations here in VA. Can we save every ferret? No. Can we try? You bet my sweet butt we can. ESPECIALLY from an animal control agency, in this case, the Arlington Animal Welfare. This borders VA/MD. It tore me a new hind part to have Lauren email us again about 2 more ferrets, where NO otheir shelters would even consider taking. I know for a fact exactly which shelters said no. How on earth can you shelters closer than we are, sleep at night, knowing you said... no.?????? Two 4 & 5 year old ferrets heading to a certain death. You know they are terrified already - they've been at this Animal Control Agency for almost 2 months. We picked up 2 otheir similar cases from this same place in Dec. I just am grateful that Lauren keeps trying to help these little guys/gals. She doesn't have to try. I imagine it's not in her job description. But she still does. She also sends their weekly vet's accessment of each ferret's health. In the case of the 2 in-coming ferrets, one has insulinoma,the otheir a small mast cell tumor on his face. And, yes, RFRL just doesn't say "No". Sometimes we try to talk a "civilian" to keep an older ferret. Sometimes we tell the owner(s) if their ferret(s) are under 3 yrs old, they might be able to find a co-worker, neighbor, who knows? to take their ferret. It's one less for us - Because we always have to make room for otheir ferrets who will be coming in. Ferrets like the Arlington ferrets. RFRL has 117 ferrets in our system. I do not like having over 25 ferrets in my home. Right now, I have 34. I'm in Richmond, and handle most of the geriatrics. Paige in Amelia has 23. Kris in Waynesboro has 14. These gals do most of the adoptions. Karen in Culpepper has 23. Mark in Henrico currently has 3 - these are his personals, they all came from us - he's been our best spokesperson since 2004. Mike has 4 - he's our newest recruit, adopted from us 2 years ago and started picking up ferrets in August '09. He's placed 5 ferrets for us, Leslie has 8- she moved to S.C. last Sept. When her lease is up, we hope she moves closer to VA. She drove up to Richmond this past Friday just to help us with the Pet Expo on Sat. Freda has 8- she does not do adoptions. She just cares for them. We have 2 more couples who would like to join us. Nicole and myself have been trying to get togetheir for the past 4 months. She and her husband drove about 1 1/2 hours to the Expo just to meet us. She's coming to visit me this Thur. Nick and his sister also came to the Expo - to meet us, they stayed all day long, and we're in the process of finding out the best way he can help out. I know everyone is flat broke now. I was laid off from work Nov. '09. RFRL ferrets come first. It's that simple. Paige is a cancer survivor, like me, and now Kris has some health issues, as does her husband. And they are so young. Both 29, if my memory is correct. So - WHY are otheir ferret shelters saying no to a KILL shelter? This just doesn't make any sense at all. If a person takes on the responsibility of a shelter, then the animals are also their responsibly. Bottom line. Marlene Blackburn Director RFRL 804-276-3905 Please feel free to call - or flame - or whatever. I can take it - but the ferrets sure as hell don't deserve this crap. Oh,and my email addy is [log in to unmask] [Posted in FML 6617]