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What are Ferrets Ferrets are domestic animals, cousins of weasels, skunks and otters. (Other relatives include minks, ermines, stoats, badgers, black-footed ferrets, polecats, and fishers.) They are not rodents; taxonomically they're in between cats and dogs, a little closer to dogs. They are friendly and make excellent pets. If you've never met one before, the easiest way to think of them is somewhere between cats and dogs in personality, but rather smaller. They can only see reasonably well, but they have excellent senses of hearing and smell. Some are cuddly, others more independent; they vary a lot, just like other pets. Retrieved from the World Wide Web on May 27, 2005 at: http://www.ferretcentral.org/faq/part1.html#what_are Ferret Friends of Tucson Board of Directors President: Carol Owens Vice President: JoAnn McBride Secretary: Sean McBride Treasurer: Dian Curran Members at Large: Robin Kladke Ed Radek EMAIL: ferretfriendsoftucson@yahoo.com
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By Dian Curran Edited by Michelle Schwerdtfeger I met Buddy when he was just a kit. He belonged to a friend, Misty, who named him Bandit after a previous ferret who looked and acted like him. He was a free roaming ferret who had the run of the house. Although Misty had other ferrets, I always favored Buddy. He would climb up my leg every time I visited and I always returned the favor with a nice tummy rub. When Ginny, the President of Ferret Friends, went into the hospital last spring Misty had volunteered to stay at Ginny’s house and take care of her crew. Since she was there several days, Misty decided to bring her ferrets with her and let them roam the house while she took care of Ginny’s ferrets. In all the shuffle, somehow Buddy got out. Misty looked all over the yard and never found him. Don, a fellow ferret lover, and the manager of the complex found out that he had been stolen by a neighbor who denied it when confronted. Yet this same neighbor came over asking for a small cage giving some story about a friend of theirs who got a rabbit. Since they were not able to prove it, it had to be dropped. A month later Misty and Don decided to put up reward signs to hopefully get him back. Shortly afterwards, the neighbor brought him back almost dead and certainly abused expecting to get the reward for "finding" him. It was clear that the neighbor had stolen him and gave him to their young daughter to make a Barbie out of him. He had had something tied around his middle that was so tight that he was swollen to the point where he could not eat or drink. His nails had been painted pink and he could barely move. He was down to less than half his original weight. The daughter is just a toddler and knew no better and I must say that the mother is a real fine role model (who do you think painted the nails?). Don grabbed Buddy and slammed the door in her face. He then rushed him to Valley Animal Hospital where he was put on IV fluids for several days. He was touch and go for nearly a week but pulled through. His bill was over $700. The evidence for abuse was clear. When I heard about this, I decided to pay the bill out of my own pocket and adopt him. However, I had to change his name since I already had a "Bandit". My Bandit was adopted from the Sierra Vista shelter when the Gliddens closed their shelter. Misty was unable to pay the bill and had moved into an apartment and could not bring him with her anyway (she has visitation rights and sees him regularly). I spoke with Don and the vet at Valley and had decided that this crime was bad enough that charges should be brought against the neighbor. The vet at Valley said that if I did the leg work, he would cooperate with this. I went to Animal Control to get this going and got no cooperation from them. They basically had the attitude that I had some sort of neighbor dispute (even though I live several miles away from Ginny’s house) and they did not want to get involved with this. They told me to take my neighbor dispute elsewhere and that it wasn’t their job to deal with a couple of squabbling neighbors. I asked them where else I could go, and they said all animal abuse cases were handled by them and only them but they would not pursue any case that they did not originate. I guess they only handle hoarders and wild stray dogs and leave the rest to the wind. I was furious! How can this be ignored? I then went to the Humane Society who directed me back to Animal Control. I lost my temper and created such a scene that they probably will remember for a long time. I then was directed to an office where I talked to one of the managers. According to someone at the Humane Society a number of rescue groups had a complaint against Animal Control. Animal Control developed a situation where most rescue groups could not take in surrenders because of a local policy which prohibited it. Apparently all surrenders had to go directly to Animal Control or the Humane Society but neither was giving animals to the rescue groups. I will say that the Humane Society has been good about giving their ferrets to Ferret Friends and there has not been any apparent problem with taking surrendered ferrets either. However, there seems to be an issue with the Humane Society giving away cats and dogs to the various groups. Again Animal Control and their local policy prohibited it and the Humane Society has no authority to hand over animals to the various rescue groups. Why ferrets are exempt from this brutal policy is anyone’s guess. The other rescue groups were going out of town to get animals while Animal Control and the Humane Society were putting most of their animals down because they had too many. However, when it comes to abuse cases, it seems as though nothing is ever done and the laws are rarely, if ever, enforced. One is always referred to Animal Control and they do not want any part of it. If you call the Sheriff’s department, Humane Society or any other authority, they are forced to refer the person to Animal Control and it dies there. The manager at the Humane Society thanked me for caring and added this complaint to their long and growing list. A couple of weeks later, an article were printed in the Star which discussed the complaint. I refer you to the article at this point but making a long story short, one of the managers of Animal Control was fired and they are going through an overhaul-long overdue. They are presently being assessed by the National Animal Control Association and I have an appointment to discuss this and other mismanaged ferret abuse cases with them. I will write a summary of this at a future time. I can only hope that this will change the local policies and allow local law enforcement to impose the animal abuse laws that are already on the books. It is probably too little too late for Buddy, but hopefully the local climate will change enough that incidents like this will not go on unnoticed. Buddy took about a month to recover from his physical injuries. It took about three or four more months for him to have his spirited personality back. He now lives at my house with 6 other ferrets and is getting more and more spoiled every day in his hot pursuit of finding and getting into new places. This incident has made Buddy a little leery of strangers and made me a real advocate for abused animals. I won’t sit by and allow this type of thing go on unnoticed.
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This site was last updated 06/02/08