>Heartbroken? For obvious reasons. Disillusioned? Because two of you >lovely people emailed her rather nastily, one (or both) telling her if she >couldn't afford to buy Totally Ferret food she didn't deserve to own a >ferret. >Ariel White [log in to unmask] Now I'm really ticked off! I was afraid this was going to happen. Not that this person would stop keeping ferrets or stop reading the FML (which is bad enough all by itself), but that someone (apparently more than one someone) would feel the need to flame the poor woman on her choice of ferret food. Nice going! Aren't you proud of yourselves? You've managed to achieve more than you probably expected. Now the ferret world is minus one more potentially good ferret owner and she probably feels (rightly) that we are all a bunch of self-righteous nincompoops. Bravo! You should get a medal! I don't care to know who the persons were either. But I've about had it with pet owners who, rather than educating, grab people by the throat and slap them in the face when they disagree with what is being done. All because they are so sure THEY ALONE know the right, and proper, and ethical way THINGS SHOULD BE DONE. Har har. If you are so sure of the right way to do things, then share the knowledge with people who ask. Once we ALL were just as uninformed as this person was and someone out there took the time to help educate us. Returning the favor by helping others who want to learn is the least we can do. Didn't you stop to consider that maybe, just maybe, the fact that Jenna was concerned enough to go to a vet, get meds, and ASK FOR HELP from us when things weren't getting better, meant that she and Vinyl deserved all the help we could give, rather than hostility? That maybe you should have offered that help if you could, and if not, kept your personal nasty opinions to yourselves? Sadly, Vinyl probably still would have died. But maybe Jenna would have kept her other ferret, stayed with the FML, continued her interest in ferrets, and in time offered her knowledge to future new ferret owners. It's called the LONG VIEW folks, something that we lose sight of too often. We're too busy calling each other names, stoking our egos, and fanning the flames between shelters, breeders, clubs, and individual owners to see that in the end, it's the animals who truly lose out. Karen [log in to unmask] =============================================== Do not meddle in the affairs of dragons, for you are crunchy and taste good with catsup. =============================================== If you love ferrets, check out: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~crassi/index.html =============================================== [Posted in FML issue 2323]