>From: Beth Comarow <[log in to unmask]> >Subject: Caring for ferrets Although it looks like its me yelling at beth or something, its not. I am just using her comments as a starting point. Quite a few people here (and elsewhere within the ferret owning community) have said very similar things. >My response: To care for a ferret well (key word) takes work. Very true. Same with all pets. Well okay, not true for pet rocks. >But I don't believe they are pets for everyone. Nor are cats, dogs, guinea pigs, goats, llamas, tarantulas... Look at animal shelters every single day to see the problems with cats and dogs. They are *not* easy to care for correctly. Ferrets do not have as large a problem with maltreatment as these currently more popular pets. We are just focused in on our own little corner and not noticing that our is the nicest corner. Its really not that bad. Ferrets are not hugely over-populated like dogs and cats. More rabbits get into homeless types of problems every Easter than ferrets get into. Daily more dogs and more cats are put down than there even are ferrets in all shelters. Dogs are given alcohol by deliquent owners. Cats are declawed constantly. Dogs are beaten and tied to short leads in the hot sun or frezzing snow. Puppy mills are a far far worse problem than conditions at the major ranches. It really does no good for ferrets in general for *US* as ferret owners to continue to tell everyone that they are such bad pets. *WE* are giving ferrets their bad reputation. *WE* need to stop this. >I do not relish more popularity withouteducation, and the education >is sorely lagging, especially given many sellers' uninterest in >learning. Then it is *OUR* job as ferret owners to strive to correct that. When we have folks, especially shelter owners, that continue to spread mis-information about how bad our ferrets are and that we don't want more and better private breeders, we end up with the reputation of ferrets getting worse and worse. It is our joint responsibility to educate. Not to mis-educate. It really makes no sense for us to egotistically as current ferret owners decide that most people aren't good enough for ferrets. Thats arrogant and wrong. (Sorry Beth, Really I'm not trying to call you in particular arrogant - especially since thats my job anyway) bill -- bill and diane killian zen and the art of ferrets http://www.zenferret.com/ mailto:[log in to unmask] [Posted in FML issue 2859]