Anyone who missed Sukie's post last night on verifying a shelter/rescue operation should find it and print it out.. it was excellent!!! I would like to add a couple things, if I may.. Most rescue/shelter/sanctuary centers are required to have local and sometimes state liciences in order to operate at all. Even private centers that do this sort of work must be sanctioned by a local agency. This means permits and periodic inspections by animal control and the health department and sometimes others. In order to keep the permit to operate they must meet specific guidelines and requirements for cleanliness and no overcrowding and food and water and lots of other things. For that local, to you, shelter she mentions as being the best to support [she's absolutely right about this too] please call the Animal Shelter or Animal Control station and ask what their inspections indicate and their opinion of the quality of the shelter and its condition and staff. Call the health department and ask if they have any record of complaints and the results of their inspections and their rating of the shelter. Make sure the shelters permits are up to date. And when you visit ask to see their intake/placement records and see if they keep neat and complete records with vaccines, and all other vet/med work noted and charted..and if they show follow up calls and visits to check on the suitability of the placements they effect. Ask for a copy of their financial statement and yearly financial report.. in short.. establish for yourself that this is a place where the care and health of the ferrets is of primary import.. and that they have good reports by local agencies and that they have no black marks against them for failed inspections or complaints from the public.. and that they are responsible about their placements and follow up each one.. and that they are good financial managers who don't stagger from crisis to crisis barely managing to get thru each day, but instead plan and keep reserves and demonstrate responsible and mature judgement. As she said, watch out for the place that does nothing but send out desperate pleas for urgent or emergency help.. instead look for a shelter thats steady and sends out instead the stories of patients and residents AFTER the crisis is passed and everything is moving forward that share good calm news and don't 'push your impulse button' for quick financial saves. Check with the shelter vet and ask for his/her opinion of the staff and the care given the fuzzys at the facility... a recommendation for or against your giving financial aide. And finally.. check to see if the shelter is going out into the community, offering information packets to stores for ferret customers, perhaps hosting a ferret club meeting a night or two a month.. doing little talks in schools and senior citizens places.. hosting a 'ferret day' table at local pet shops a few times a year and giving out information as well as answering questions and giving advice where asked.. holding public pot lucks or some such to help raise funds, offering shelter 'ferret shop' items , the small profit from which will help funding as well.. in short interacts with the community to be of service, to educate, to get the shelter known to pet industry folks, and to regularly fund raise thru offerings so the need for appeals and emergency funding is a very rare event. A shelter must be just that, a place of refuge... and a dirty, unsanctioned, poorly administrated, overcrowded, place with no community service and interaction is a refuge for nobody, especially not a homeless, scared, possibly hurt or sick or starved little fur person. If a shelter isn't up to snuff, either support one that is or help get your choice upgraded.. The news is full of reports of horrible disgusting personal 'animal shelters' someone has cobbled together in their yard [big or small] to save the poor little doggies or kitties or whatever. No vaccinations, rotten food, waste everywhere, no reliable water supply, overcrowded, infested with parasites etc. that get busted wide open in a raid and the poor fur kids are mainly so ill and neglected they end up PTS. Be sure 'your' shelter is top quality and a place to be proud of. Insist on it!!! California, So Cal especially has to be the scam capitol of the world.. and those rotten people that prey on their fellow man have hurt so many people out here that the good folks with real and worthwhile efforts to fund find it hard going to get anyone to hear them. Even the police have been used as subjects by scam artists who call claiming to be an officer/or arrive at your door in uniform, to ask for donations to the police departments favorite charities. The saying here is 'if its legit its got a permit' and I always check to see that any group soliciting any amount, no matter how small, has a registered legal permit to operate. food for thought... dayna dayna frazier 102046,3162 'resident of the 'Marvellous Menagerie of Mirthful Mayhem' MMOMM!!! [Posted in FML issue 1613]