A Soapbox Sermon on Vaccinations A few years ago, my cat decided he needed to shred my other cat. I (idiotically) got between them, got badly scratched, the scratches got infected, and to make a long story short, the doctor reported the incident to animal control (he had to, by law). So my cat was put in quarantine. If he hadn't had his shots, he would have been euthanized and his brain examined for rabies. A whole lot of paperwork and grief, and I (the owner) was the only human involved. Let's say you don't vaccinate a pet (ferret, cat, elephant, whatever) against rabies and it bites (even accidentally, even if it didn't break the skin) someone else. The legal headache turns into a full-fledged legal migraine. First off, your pet is going to be taken from you and probably immediately euthanized. If the person who was bitten decides to sue (or his parents do), you can bet your bottom dollar that the lack of rabies certification is going to cause the euthanizing of your pet AND will play heavily into the size of the lawsuit against you. There are times when it is healthier for an animal not to be vaccinated. In that case, you and the head of your household, if you're not it, would need to talk with your vet and decide what to do. This sounds like legalistic BS, I know, but ya gotta deal with the legal consequences, even if you don't agree with the law. (I was furious that my town's animal control was quarantining my cat for scratching me. I felt that since I was the owner, it was my problem. But the plain truth is that my feelings were irrelevant--the law said the cat had to be quarantined. We're just lucky it wasn't worse than that.) Finally (just another minute and I'll get off the soapbox), a word on distemper. Rabies is nasty, a legal issue, but also not that common. Distemper is a whole different story. Distemper is a killer and it IS out there, all over, and it spreads easily. If you read the ferret veterinary info, you'll find that almost no ferrets survive distemper. Those that do survive suffer severe neurological damage. It is a horrible disease. If your ferret gets distemper because you didn't get it shots (or if your baby gets polio because you didn't get the baby its shots), the ferret and the baby are basically screwed and it's YOUR fault. PLEASE vaccinate your ferrets for distemper! (And for your own sake, go ahead and get the ferrets their rabies shots.) Jacqueline [Posted in FML issue 2590]