We need a bunch of Bridge greeters. I am more sad than I can even express to tell you that distemper has infected ferrets in our shelter. I had wanted to hold off on posting publicly until we had more answers, but I understand people are talking about this already, so I figured I'd get as much straight information out as I can. I'll apologize for not being as coherent as I should, but we're just barely hanging in emotionally. It didn't help that this all blew up just before we had to move the whole shelter last Saturday. We locked that down to a handful of people to avoid risking any more ferrets. We've traced it back to a ferret that came in from Animal Control. His partner was euthanized on arrival because he had the classic distemper symptoms, but Gumby didn't look sick. A little flushed, but that's it. A "helpful" volunteer picked him up and delivered him in to the middle of a cage bank mid-week, without notifying us. When we examined him, he looked like he might have had flu (there's a lot of nasty flu going around), and he got better. To this day, Gumby is just fine. Then other ferrets started getting sick. Still not knowing about Gumby's cage-mate, and given that some of the ferrets getting sick had been vaccinated in December, we felt confident that it was flu and not distemper... Till it started getting worse, and ferrets started developing the crusty pads and gunky eyes and other symptoms of distemper. It's been confirmed by two labs. Once we knew what we were dealing with, we went through the shelter and euthanized the sick ferrets. There's really no hope for them once they get that sick, and believe me it's not doing them any favors to keep them suffering longer. We stepped out of the shelter to take a break from that, and looked up to see a brilliant double rainbow over the shelter. It seemed like an appropriate sign, and I hope those babies were greeted warmly. We've also given booster vaccinations to all shelter and most foster ferrets. I've spent over $1200 in vaccines this week alone. The maddening thing is that there's just no pattern to it. Outside of a few ferrets that had had reactions, the ferrets have been vaccinated. There's no pattern to the cages where ferrets got sick. In one cage, two ferrets got really sick and passed, while the third of the group is completely healthy, bouncing off the walls. Of course, we are completely closed and locked down until we've been completely clean for longer than the incubation period (14 days) and the vets have given the all-clear. That means that other shelters are getting ferrets that we would have taken. Denise's Delightful Dookers (www.washingtonferretdelights.org) has been a wonderful help. What you can do to help: 1) I really would appreciate it if these sweet souls got a welcome at the Bridge. There are some names that I don't have yet, and some are likely passing tonight, but I have: Sugar Tinkerbell Mocha Bella Lucky Yoshi Boomer Loki Rihanna Madusa Mercedes Kendra Dirk Romeo Juliet Albie Titus Madison Damien Barbosa Sinister Qadesh 2) Please say a prayer not only for the rest of the ferrets, but for the volunteers who have been working to save ferrets nonstop, and whose hearts are broken tonight. 3) I know you've got questions, and this is a juicy bit of news, but if you can give us space to grieve, it would really be appreciated. It's not over yet either, so our priority is the ferrets in the shelter. If you really need questions answered, please come directly to me: [log in to unmask] and I'll give you all the answers we have. 4) Donations are always welcome, and between the move and this, we have little in the way of reserves, but we'll make it. Kevin Farlee President Washington Ferret Rescue & Shelter [Posted in FML 7048]