As a shelter who also sells pet supplies, we have a fantastic repeat business of people who know we sell supplies to support our rescue efforts and who wish to help our efforts. Many people drive 50 miles and more every couple of months to purchase supplies from us because they want to support our rescue animals, as they care about them as we do. However, there's always that 1 tenth of 1% of people who just don't understand the difference between a shelter and a pet store. On Monday of this week a very rude person arrived at our shelter and stated that she'd just bought a ferret and was here to 'buy another one'. This person was told by a volunteer that we are a shelter and that the adoption manager was not in, but this person insisted upon receiving information about all of the ferrets in the shelter, even though the volunteer repeatedly told her that all she knew was what was written on the cage cards. This person very rudely followed a volunteer into the back of the shop, past an "employees only" sign and saw two young ferrets playing in our exercise room. She still didn't get it (we're a shelter and we don't just SELL ferrets to whoever has a credit card) and she insisted to our volunteer that she wanted to purchase one of them. In order to get rid of her, the volunteer did what she's been instructed to do, she gave the person an adoption application to complete and told her that she'd be contacted. As a shelter we do what is best for the animal, not what is best for someone with a credit card and no patience. This person was told that she'd be called, but instead chose to phone the shelter numerous times, and with each call attempted to intimidate and coerce the volunteers into giving her the ferret. We do NOT adopt biting ferrets to inexperienced ferret people, especially when the person is only interested in the color of the ferret and doesn't care about the personality of the animal. As everyone knows, there has been major discussions on this list about biting ferrets and the frequent difficulties in training them to stop biting. Our shelter personnel gets to know newly arrived ferrets, if they are biting we work with them to stop the biting, in cases where we fail to correct this behavior, we rigorously screen potential adoptors. Biting ferrets may end up spending the remainder of their lives with us. Ferrets simply don't go out into the public part of the shelter until they have been quarantined for two weeks; until we get to know them personally; and not until they have gone to the vet. We are not interested in a 'quick turn around', nor are we interested in a fast buck, we are interested only in what's best for the ferrets who cross our paths. This person was given the name of two other shelters in the Seattle area, but she flippantly stated that we had "forced" her to go back to the pet store where she bought her first ferret because she wasn't about to put up with the #$%^ that shelters wanted to put people through. Sorry that this was so long, just had to air my disappointment with this type of person, one who fails to care what's best for the many 'recycled' animals in this world but who instead requires immediate self-gratification. That's obviously their right, just as it is also our right to do what we feel is best for the animals who belong to us. Sandi Ackerman Best Little Rabbit, Rodent & Ferret House Seattle, WA [Posted in FML issue 2246]