There's plenty of shelter volunteers and operators here, so feel free to add to this list. I volunteer weekends at my county's animal shelter and I have one standing rule: do not let me work with intake. The excuses "people" give for turning in animals are so pathetic they'd make you laugh if they didn't break your heart. This quotation from Wednesday's FML gave me the idea for this: "I do not breed the rescue animals as there is often a good reason they were unwanted in the first place." I have yet to hear a "good" reason why an animal is unwanted. The so-called best seem to be that the animal's quality of life has deteriorated to a point of no return. That's when your animal, your pet needs you the most and when you need to be an adult and do what is right. Taking a sick animal to a shelter is not only inhumane it is an act of cowardice. These are some of the "reasons" we've heard for leaving animals (including ferrets) at the shelter: "She had [insert any name for offspring] and we're keeping them, not her..." "We had new carpet installed and his fur doesn't match" "We're having children and have no time..." "We don't understand why she does [insert any natural and predictable behavior]..." "It was a gift we really don't want" I'm sure there are plenty of other great ones. I have found that my concern about the problems of humanity have dissipated greatly since I've been working with animals. We, as humans, don't deserve a lot of what we think we do. If you can, please adopt from shelters. Often, these animals are so loving- they just need homes. You even get an irreplaceable sense of accomplishment by adopting so-called "special needs" animals. I love doing what they say can't be done. And our house is a citadel of TLC because of it. [Posted in FML issue 2698]