This is Jinx. He came here just a few weeks ago with his friend Zelda. He is super super cute in this picture, sticking out his tongue at me. He was a pleasure to photograph -- very playful, very cuddly.
He is dead.
Chris found him in his sleepy sack last week. We don't know what happened to him. There wasn't a mark on him. No symptoms. Nothing.
A 2-year-old ferret should not just die for no reason. But that is what seems to happen in shelters. Sometimes people bring in ferrets, and they don't want to tell us that the ferret has had strange symptoms. They don't want us to refuse to take them, like some other shelters do, because they are sick. So we have to find out on our own. And sometimes, finding out on our own means we find out too late.
Relying on our detective abilities, especially with so very many ferrets to take care of, is just cruel. It's cruel to the ferret, and it's cruel to us, because every time we find a dead ferret, we die a little too.
