I put together a tiny something in sympathy to all those who have recently lost ferrets or who are coping with terminal illnesses in their loved ones. It's just a jot, a piece of treacle -- which may help loosen tears when that's needed, as only a cloying gift sometimes can. There come those days when you find yourself paying coin to the piper without stopping his song; wishing he'd miss a measure and feel ego-bound to begin again so that you could cavort a few steps more than ever expected. More sweat for your brow, more salt for same, to dilute the tears lost to silly kisses with whiskers thrust up your nose. If you cry and laugh with memories then we will remember with you As you will too soon remember with us: those fur-bound buzzes with barrel rolls who so relished being baffled by us doxies to their delights. If this helps you at all, or you know someone it may help, feel free to use it as you wish. DICK: What types of photos do you need? Maybe there are folks here who would be happy to help your books fund the shelter by donating photos of their ferrets which may fit your needs. HOW ABOUT IT, FOLKS? Would you like to have your fuzzy's pictures in a book and help a shelter at the same time, at the cost of a postage stamp? It was good to get so much private mail about my post on scams, but not so good to hear that there are folks out there who have been through it. Many thanks also for the public support. Some people wanted to know how a shelter in an FFZ could be verified. You have heard useful information from others which will help. Some other approaches may be if shelters in FFZs arrange to be visited by representatives of legalization efforts in their area. Then the members of those efforts who are already known to the fml (and whose own reputations have been verified by newspaper accounts of their legal wrangling) could post a report, and perhaps even agree to funnel monies to the shelter's vet for a 10 to 20% handling fee that would help finance legalization efforts if the shelter operator wanted privacy rather than vet-direct donations. Another approach would be for the shelter operator to issue an open invitation to well-known ferret activists already here to visit. Whether the area is a city, county, or state there are sure to be some folks who fit the bill and are not a long drive outside the area, or who will be visiting for business, conference, or other reasons.I did NOT receive EVEN ONE negative reply from shelter operators or contributors to the idea of monies going directly to a veterinary hospital. DAVE, I don't have it handy, but search through references from a few decades ago (the 60s, the 70s?) for the study which was done to see which of several species could contract rabies by eating contaminated remains. A few, including ferrets, did not. Norma-ann, if your vet will not call and talk with the research staff at the drug's manufacturer, you should. (This is not only a useful ploy when a vet is unaware of such important aspects as the IMRAB testing history, but also when using meds not commonly given to critters. With the latter there may be aspects, such as avoiding exposure to saliva as much as possible, which are critical to a drug's function, but not normally mentioned in the package inserts since humans could swallow a pill whole (rather than needing the medication given in another way, such as ground-up and in Nutrical.)) R&M still with us. Hanan said that if R. avoids more bouts of congestive heart failure she may have up to 8 weeks, but most likely will leave us within a month. BOB, Send your university department address for the osteology donation. Sukie, Steve, Meltdown, Ruffle, 'Chopper, Spot, Meeteetse, and Warp [Posted in FML issue 1619]