First big issue is that this facility has rats in the first place. That should probably be the primary focus of this article, that’s totally unacceptable.
But moving beyond that.
It’s insane that they’re using therapy animals for this purpose. If these were two separate programs and they were using dedicated rat catching ferrets, I could get that. That’s what ferrets do, and it sure beats scattering poison around. But those ferrets are also potentially being exposed to diseases and parasites and such from the rats and so they shouldn’t be used as therapy animals to make sure that they’re not spread to the children.
I have no experience with ferrets personally, but it also seems to me like you probably don’t want the animals you’re training to chase/bite/kill rodents to be the same ones you’re using to soothe kids with trauma and such.
As far as children being involved in and witnessing ferrets being used for pest control, I think that’s a bit of a mixed bag depending on the kids.
At the end of the day, some animals eat and kill other animals. Pretty much everyone knows that from a pretty young age, how many children’s cartoon and nursery rhymes and such are about cats chasing/eating mice after all?
Now actually witnessing that can absolutely be distressing for a lot of people who aren’t used to it.
But on the flip side, I do think that introducing children to that, if done properly, can often be beneficial to them, give them a better understanding of life/death, the food chain, responsibility etc.
Not that it sounds like they were doing this in an appropriate fashion. And of course if we’re dealing with children with various kinds of trauma, that topic needs to be broached even more delicately.
First big issue is that this facility has rats in the first place. That should probably be the primary focus of this article, that’s totally unacceptable.
But moving beyond that.
It’s insane that they’re using therapy animals for this purpose. If these were two separate programs and they were using dedicated rat catching ferrets, I could get that. That’s what ferrets do, and it sure beats scattering poison around. But those ferrets are also potentially being exposed to diseases and parasites and such from the rats and so they shouldn’t be used as therapy animals to make sure that they’re not spread to the children.
I have no experience with ferrets personally, but it also seems to me like you probably don’t want the animals you’re training to chase/bite/kill rodents to be the same ones you’re using to soothe kids with trauma and such.
As far as children being involved in and witnessing ferrets being used for pest control, I think that’s a bit of a mixed bag depending on the kids.
At the end of the day, some animals eat and kill other animals. Pretty much everyone knows that from a pretty young age, how many children’s cartoon and nursery rhymes and such are about cats chasing/eating mice after all?
Now actually witnessing that can absolutely be distressing for a lot of people who aren’t used to it.
But on the flip side, I do think that introducing children to that, if done properly, can often be beneficial to them, give them a better understanding of life/death, the food chain, responsibility etc.
Not that it sounds like they were doing this in an appropriate fashion. And of course if we’re dealing with children with various kinds of trauma, that topic needs to be broached even more delicately.