Fluffy Retreat Ferret Rescue31/01/2025
I need to post this - rant alert
Ferrets (or ANY animal) are living beings! They feel pain, they feel emotions, they have their own specific needs and when we keep them as pets we take on responsibility to ensure those needs are met, above all else... they are not toys or the latest fad!
At the moment we genuinely only have difficult to handle ferrets and hybrids in. They are rehomable, but only to very experienced owners with the right set ups for their individual needs. Such is the complexity of being a rescue, you often get the more challenging ones staying around for a long time. We are not trying to fob people off with this, but I'm not going to waste anyone's time if I know I haven't got the right ferret for the applicant.
Sadly this does cause what we call "bed blocking" and means sometimes we are stuck for a while with not having suitable ferrets for new owners. Most are understanding of this and appreciate our honesty. Some people are downright horrible about this and seem to think we should just put these hard to home ferrets down so we can take in more.
Even when a new ferret comes in, we are usually looking at a minimum of a month before we can rehome them. They have 2 weeks quarantine, routine vet trips for neutering, vaccinated and any other treatment they require. They have to be assessed to see how easy they are to handle and whether they need any behavioural training, wait for their hormone levels to drop and see if they are likely to mix with other ferrets.this takes time, we cannot just magic up the perfect ferret.
Well done if you are still reading, and my apologies... but today has made me so angry!
We had contact this week from someone about rehoming some of our ferrets, a new owner. I explained that we really don't have anything suitable for a new owner right now and encouraged them to come back to us in a couple of months. They were very pushy and felt that they would be fine with a biter or hybrid. It is not our policy to put these ferrets into inexperienced homes, full stop!
Less than 24 hours later they contacted again to see if we had anything new come in. I explained again how long it takes to get a new ferret ready for rehoming and that they should come back to us in two months, as advised the previous day. By now my gut feeling is this is the wrong type of person for our ferrets (I've been rehoming ferrets for a long time, you get a feeling for the unsuitable homes /people).
Things go quiet for a day and then today I get messages and a missed call from the person ...
"I've got two ferrets that I brought but they need to go"
"They are biting my daughter for no reason"
"I can't have animals that are biting her it's just not fair I need to put her first"
"They have really now caught her leg. I really can't have them"
"Do you buy them off me or can I give them to you for another animal you have that doesn't bite"
Firstly you didn't get them from us, as I wouldn't rehome ferrets to you. You were inpatient, unprepared and clearly just wanted a new toy.
Secondly, why should a charity reimburse you for something you bought from what is likely a backyard breeder or out of the paper?
Thirdly why on earth would you think we would ever be willing to "swap" the animal's you have bought. People like this will never get a ferret from me, as I knew they would be straight back with it the first time it didn't do what they want.
Over the last year I have given serious thought to giving up doing Rescue work and this is preciously why! It's not the animal's, it's not the challenging, exhausting, heartbreaking work that goes into rehabbing every one of those little souls, its the idiots like this who make rescue work hell.
I try very hard not to be judgemental about people's situations, when they contact me saying they have to give up their ferret because they don't have time as now work full time (I work full time, and still manage to look after everyone else's ferrets) or the I've got a new dog and it doesn't like the ferret, so the ferret must go etc etc
There are so many genuine situations that loving owners find themselves in that mean they have to give up their ferrets. And these genuine owners break their heart and try everything they can first to keep their beloved pets... but for every one of them, there are at least a dozen who have just got bored, don't care, never really did.
Thank you for listening to a tired, angry old woman at the end of her tether
