I Hate it When People Give up their Ferrets

Another email came in, on our guest book at www.ferretsanon.com about someone looking to place their ferrets. Because of the bad economy they are moving into an apartment and the owner fears the maintenance person will discover the ferrets and turn them in.

A "Free to Good Home" approach.

I have been answering the Ferrets Anonymous phone and email for 15 years - I hate this situation - and it is more common than you would think.

People must feel guilty for owning ferrets, they think they aren't providing them with a good enough home. Someone else out there would be a better owner.

I am haunted by by a case many years ago. A woman feeling this gave up her ferret. The new owner would not let her see it and the feeling was that something bad (and intentional) had happened to the ferret. The new owner seemed a bit of a sicko. That poor woman cried on my shoulder more than once.

Perhaps the maintenance person owns ferrets - its happened! Perhaps the apartment managers are more understanding than you'd think.

The last apartment I rented I snuck the ferrets in. No one can enter the apartment without advance notice. I just snuck the ferrets in the back room, not that that landlord ever did any service. I put heavy plastic under the doors and there was no damage. I also had the carpets cleaned before I left, no odor.

Giving away your ferrets could be a permanent solution to a temporary problem. There are people in Ferrets Anonymous who will foster your ferrets if you run into trouble.

Disagreeing is OK

It's not a secret - I don't care who knows, there is some serious disagreement going on within the LegalizeFerrets.org (or whatever you wish to call it) working group that is planning the next steps towards ferret legalization in California.



The disagreement involves how important is the Environmental Impact Report (EIR) in regards to ferret legalization.

I received an email this morning from one of my favorite ferret people:

Posting in CliffNotes for 5000+ readers to see that the group is in
disagreement is not only divisive, it gives everyone the impression that we are
once again fighting the old "my way is better" fight reminiscent of just a
couple years ago.

California ferret legalization efforts were previously notorious for their flame wars. We are basically paranoid to avoid that.

But what we have here is healthy. We have people seriously involved and committed to ferret legalization trying their best to get it done. We are acting like adults.

I've been involved with organizations all my adult life. Every organization has at least one dissenter. And what is really annoying about this person - is they are usually right! (oh, how I hate that - are you listening Betsy Hawyard?)

Plus - CLIFFNotes will never be sugar-coated. People subscribe and read it because they want to know what is going on. Its not just propaganda.

But we will never trash people, we will always treat everyone's opinions with respect and I appreciate the valid questions being asked.

Pat Wright
CLIFFNotes@legalizeferrets.org
http://www.legalizeferrets.org/