Ahhhh!!! People! And their ignorance!

[lizardgrrl]

Grixxly, you got it right! :laughhard: I've never been a big fan of dog kisses, used to do the Lucy Van Pelt when I was a kid, guess I still do it internally to some degree with the dogs, but basically do what I can to avoid dog licks. Cat licks, no fear. Beardie licks, no fear. Squirrels licks, no fear. Opossums, guinea pigs, hamsters, mice, chipmunks, all pets with no problems. We'd bring home frogs, toads, lizards, snakes, salamanders, numerous baby birds rescued from the cats, handled them all as kids, often where there was no place to immediately wash our hands. :laughing6: Never have had salmonella or e coli. We had the turtles when we were little, too, Barbara. I do remember that we had them maybe three years, from when I was about three years old to six or seven years old, my first pets. I also think their shells ended up getting soft, but no one talked about UVB in those days. I remember hearing it was a common problem with them, why my parents didn't get new ones when our old ones died. As for ferrets, like gerbils, they were outlawed here out of a fear of them getting loose and starting feral populations here. As we are losing many of our native species (frogs, garter snakes, fish) because of introduced species taking over native's territories(i.e., African Frogs) or destruction of the habitat or crops, (i.e., med flies, apple moths, or wild pigs which cause incredible damage and injury across the entire country, also responsible for e coli and salmonella outbreaks when they broke down fences of California lettuce and spinach growers and splashed their fecal matter on the leaves) the ban is for good reasons, but should be handled by permits, rather than full scale bans. The who simply dumps an animal in the wild, the street, the park, the bank parking lot, ( [ Invalid URL Removed / p= t=91453 f=33 ] ) needs to be stopped, cited, maybe some jail time, castration, sick Tatsu's Army on them, :twisted: whatever it takes to prevent them doing it again, ever. They are as ignorant as the phobic and uneducated parent that was the inspiration for this topic. When I was a kid, my uncle came home from one of his trips with a gerbil, and we were told it had to be called a kangaroo rat, as gerbils were not legal here, but people like my uncle were never a problem, as the animals were very well cared for, and never in any danger of being released in the wild. If permits had been available, he would have gotten one. :study: :study: :study: