I will start off by saying that an opinions expressed in this post are mine, and are not necessarily the opinions of any of my friends, associates, or organizations I am a member of. I do not always have the time to read the FML, and even if I do read it, I often just skim through, reading those posts with a subject line that interests me. "Just Curious" is not a subject line that grabs my attention, and so I missed you original FML post until I saw the replies to it the next day. I did go back then and read what you had posted, but did not feel the need to respond because it appeared to me you had confused several different things, and Vickie, Kay, and the others who had replied had pretty much answered your questions. Again, on Saturday, I missed your post, and did not read it until I had seen Vickie's reply. You mention that you received a lot of hate mail in response to your original post, and for that I am sorry. I personally saw nothing in your original post to warrant hate mail. It seemed to me you were simply uninformed or misinformed. However, you also mentioned in both your posts that you were posting on the FML in reference to a discussion on another forum. There is no law against doing that, but when you do it, those of us who are not on the other forum may not be aware of everything and exactly what was said by who, and so we cannot really be certain what exactly is going on. Is it possible that some of the hate mail you received was associated with comments from the other forum? Next, since I have no clue who you are, I do not know if you know me or not. So, just briefly, I am a small scale breeder who is also a member of the AFA, and attends AFA shows to show my ferrets. I do not run a rescue or shelter in addition to my breeding activity, but I do try to provide as much support as I can to the shelter community. I understand the importance of the ferret shelter community, and try to help where I can. As an example, I am more likely to show more ferrets at a show like Buckeye Bash, Fandango, or the GCFA show, where the proceeds of the show go to the support of a specific shelter. When I can, I also try to sponsor a ring at those shows, again, because in the end, it does help a shelter. I also give what I can afford to groups like SOS, for the benefit of shelters. Finally, if you came into my house, you would find that all of my ferret bedding comes from individuals who either run a shelter and sell bedding as a way of supporting their shelter, or who make and sell bedding to have money to donate to the shelter community. Most of my ferret toys come to me the same way. Also, at shows if there is a shelter group selling food or other ferret supplies I use, I will buy from them, rather than going to a pet store or ordering it online. When the DMK rescue occurred, I did not adopt any of those ferrets. I was just recovering from having had ADV in my home, and at the time was being very careful about what ferrets came into my home. Some of the DMK ferrets were not ADV tested before being sent out to homes. It was a risk I was not willing to take. My house is small, and I have limited quarantine area. Plus, what I do have is not suitable for any long term stay by a ferret. As a result, only ferrets from ADV- homes who have had a recent ADV test, or are kits from an ADV- home are allowed into my house. That said, I do know of several breeders who did adopt ferrets from the rescue. And, since your initial email was pointing the finger at Kay, let me point out that Kay is an active member of HOFA, and HOFA as an organization was very much in the thick of things when the rescue happened. I do not know what role Kay played, but I know that HOFA took about 100 (I believe that was roughly how many) of the ferrets almost immediately, had people who went to Lori's and stayed to help with the care, donated a lot of supplies for the ferrets' care, helped with transport of some of the ferrets, etc. HOFA has a number of small scale breeders in addition to Kay who are members, and as far as I know, all of them helped out in whatever way they could. Yes, Kay is a good friend of mine, but part of the reason she is is that she is a very responsible breeder who takes good care of her ferrets, is very careful where she places them, and breeds for healthy ferrets with good temperament. Again, I have no clue who said what on another forum, but it seemed like Kay's previous explanation to your first FML post answered all your questions and confusion. Danee DeVore ADV - If your ferret hasn't been tested, you don't know! For more information visit: <http://www.ferretadv.com> ADV - Find out how you can help: http://help4adv.terrabox.com/ [Posted in FML 7187]