Viral "News" Story that's Making Me Batshit.
Okay, pretty much every day for the past two weeks my Google alert on "ferret +pet" has returned a new news agency covering this insane story from Missouri.
The short version, as it's being reported is this: A family had an infant and a pet ferret. The pet ferret climbed in with the baby and ate off 7 of the infant's fingers. The father caught the ferret in the act and threw the ferret across the room, killing it.
It's gotten to a point where I'm actually registering on each of these t.v. stations/newspapers/whatever so I can comment and ask them to prove that this has actually happened.
My canned response...
I challenge any news agency carrying this story to provide proof that it happened. An x-ray of the baby's hand and the ferret's stomach maybe?
Look at a picture of a ferret. Now think about an animal that size chewing off even an infant's fingers. That's going to take some time.
1.) Even an infant has the ability to pull away from something painful. Are we supposed to believe that the baby just lay there and LET the ferret eat his hands?
2.) Infants scream when they're unhappy. Where were the parents after that first chomp? A ferret would have to gnaw on a digit to actually remove it. This takes time. "they never heard the baby crying until late into the ordeal" Seriously? *7* fingers do not get chewed off in a minute or so. There's a major timing issue that doesn't add up.
3.) What was that ferret trained to eat? In 8 years of owning ferrets I can't even get them to eat hamburger or chicken because they weren't fed these foods when they were young. If this ferret likes human flesh, someone needs to look into what that ferret was fed as a kit. Ferrets nip when they play, they bite when they're frightened or angry. They don't *eat* people.
4.) While a ferret does need time out of his/her cage each day to play, the adults in the house are responsible that there are safe environments for the ferret to play and for the infant to rest. And never the two should meet. Ferrets and young children have roughly the same intelligence, which means they won't interact well because neither can understand the needs of the other.
This 'story' has gone viral and yet no one has provided proof of it happening. I strongly suspect that the parents were being negligent, some other tragedy happened to their child and they blamed the ferret because ferrets are pretty misunderstood animals.
The short version, as it's being reported is this: A family had an infant and a pet ferret. The pet ferret climbed in with the baby and ate off 7 of the infant's fingers. The father caught the ferret in the act and threw the ferret across the room, killing it.
It's gotten to a point where I'm actually registering on each of these t.v. stations/newspapers/whatever so I can comment and ask them to prove that this has actually happened.
My canned response...
I challenge any news agency carrying this story to provide proof that it happened. An x-ray of the baby's hand and the ferret's stomach maybe?
Look at a picture of a ferret. Now think about an animal that size chewing off even an infant's fingers. That's going to take some time.
1.) Even an infant has the ability to pull away from something painful. Are we supposed to believe that the baby just lay there and LET the ferret eat his hands?
2.) Infants scream when they're unhappy. Where were the parents after that first chomp? A ferret would have to gnaw on a digit to actually remove it. This takes time. "they never heard the baby crying until late into the ordeal" Seriously? *7* fingers do not get chewed off in a minute or so. There's a major timing issue that doesn't add up.
3.) What was that ferret trained to eat? In 8 years of owning ferrets I can't even get them to eat hamburger or chicken because they weren't fed these foods when they were young. If this ferret likes human flesh, someone needs to look into what that ferret was fed as a kit. Ferrets nip when they play, they bite when they're frightened or angry. They don't *eat* people.
4.) While a ferret does need time out of his/her cage each day to play, the adults in the house are responsible that there are safe environments for the ferret to play and for the infant to rest. And never the two should meet. Ferrets and young children have roughly the same intelligence, which means they won't interact well because neither can understand the needs of the other.
This 'story' has gone viral and yet no one has provided proof of it happening. I strongly suspect that the parents were being negligent, some other tragedy happened to their child and they blamed the ferret because ferrets are pretty misunderstood animals.