To Dick Bossart: You know, you would think because WNYFLFA has a shelter and we see stuff like this all the time, that I would get used to hearing stories like this, but your story, Dick, brought tears to my eyes this morning. And the worse the stories are, the nicer the ferrets are - why is that? We have several ferrets in our shelter now with sad stories - one woman turned over 4 ferrets to us recently because one of them was sick - now, she had taken it to the vet, but the vet told her nothing was wrong with it (yeah, right), but when we got it, it was having such an allergic reaction to something that it's eyes were swollen shut, her fur was in terrible condition, and she had scabs all over from scratching herself raw. Turns out she was feeding them Kit and Kaboodle (I know I spelled it wrong!) - yucky food. After a skin soothing bath, several days of Benadryl and Totally Ferret, she's like a new ferret. We suspect she had a food allergy to something in the K&K. Her cagemates were so fat and lacked muscle tone from never getting any exercise. They've lost weight just in the short time in our shelter. It just breaks my heart to see how some people take care of - or DON"T take care of - their ferrets. And Kudos to all shelter people everywhere for the work you do. Special thanks to WNYFLFA Shelter Director, Laura Martino, who has done such an outstanding job this past year, and to Pam Greene for developing the Ferret FAQ - the bible of ferret owners everywhere. Debbie Riccio WNYFLFA Rochester, NY [Posted in FML issue 1557]