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Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2014 15:06:20 GMT -5
What an ignorant terrible excuse for a Physician he must've been. I wish I was there when that happened, I seek out the ignorant to point them (shove them) in the right direction LOL It always seems the things we are allergic to, are the things we love the most. Like me with cats and horses and birds, love them to death, and I can't touch them. I'm glad the baby was okay and your sitter was understandable and took responsibility for what happened.
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Post by katt on Oct 25, 2014 17:47:44 GMT -5
Children and animals both are unpredictable. Children don't have a fully developed frontal lobe - meaning they lack in reasoning. LOL You can explain to them all day to not do something, but you just can't expect them to actually follow those instructions. Stating this for anyone who may be reading - if you have a ferret who you KNOW bites or who you are even a little unsure of, it is best to simply NOT permit children to handle them. Really this goes for any ferret but biters in particular, you never know how they will respond to a child's fast and unpredictable movements - children are both predator and prey in one. If you want to let young kids interact with your ferrets, the best approach is for you to hold the ferret, with the head facing away from the child, and let them pet the ferret's back and butt. Especially if you don't know the child and/or parents well or if the parents are unfamiliar with ferrets you should be EXTRA careful. You might not get as lucky as Mike and get a reasonable response from the parent. And if your ferret is unvaccinated (Rabies) and the parents report the bite and push hard enough, your ferret could be destroyed for rabies testing. Heck, the same goes for letting other adults handle them. If you choose to let other people handle your ferrets, especially children who are unpredictable and cannot follow instructions (they just can't lol) and whose parents might overreact out of nervousness/overprotectiveness for their child, then just be aware of the risks involved. Sorry Mike, hate to use you as a teaching example LOL but it's an important point for people to be aware of. Not every kid's parents would react as rationally as your pet sitter did. I'm glad he was reasonable at least!
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Post by katt on Oct 25, 2014 17:51:14 GMT -5
What an ignorant terrible excuse for a Physician he must've been. I wish I was there when that happened, I seek out the ignorant to point them (shove them) in the right direction LOL It always seems the things we are allergic to, are the things we love the most. Like me with cats and horses and birds, love them to death, and I can't touch them. I'm glad the baby was okay and your sitter was understandable and took responsibility for what happened. Just because he is uneducated about ferrets doesn't mean he is a bad physician otherwise. Ignorance is fear - people fear what they do not know. It sounds like he may have had a bad experience with a ferret as a kid himself. Unfortunately that is very common. As we all know some ferrets ARE bad biters. I've known people who were bitten by ferrets and are terrified of them. I have to work them up to meeting mine and realizing that not all ferrets are vicious. Fear can be hard for people to get past. The best we can do is educate, educate, educate!
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Post by Deleted on Oct 25, 2014 18:03:30 GMT -5
Ignorance isn't an excuse to be an ahole... ahaha. I hope that doctor one day finds some clarity on ferrets and learns the truth, though. And tell me about it, like, when I take Caillou out with me, once I was in the store and was holding him and a little girl and her dad came up and asked if they could pet him and if he bit. I said no he doesn't bite, the dad pet him and then I held Caillou firmly and let them little girl pet his back. I have an 8mo old niece we babysit often and she loves watching the ferrets, Caillou has never once tried to bite her, because I watch them like hawks and sit right beside my niece when he's around and make sure he doesn't get too close. I don't trust him or any ferret around any child, it doesn't matter how trained or gentle they are. As for terrified people. First hand experience with that. My aunt will jump up and RUN out of the room if I'm holding the ferrets, she is completely terrified of them, because her cousin had ferrets and they used to bite her feet when she was younger. Most people are hesitant to pet them or hold them because they think they will bite, I tell them he isn't a biter, mostly because he gets so nervous when he goes out in public he just lays there and does nothing, and it's up to them whether or not they want to risk it. Caillou has never bitten anyone unless he was playing and grabbed your foot or mouthed your hand, but it doesn't mean he won't. And Juliet has never, ever bitten me, and even though she's blind, deaf, has 2 cancers and is 6yrs old, I wouldn't trust her either. The only thing we can do really is yes, educate! That's why we're on this forum, to learn, then educate others.
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