The South End Newspaper

When thinking about Detroit’s homeless pet population, certain images come readily to mind: feral cats roaming the streets, kittens abandoned on empty doorsteps, the yips and howls of dogs from their kennels at the Michigan Humane Society. It’s only upon viewing the wall of cages, each housing several ferrets, in Nanci Frazier and Alex Oeming’s basement in Hazel Park that it hits: others need help too.

Frazier and Oeming run a non-profit, no-kill ferret shelter named Motor City Ferrets out of their home. They usually have about 40 ferrets on hand but recently the number has climbed to as many as 60, most of which are adoptable.

Frazier began simply as a ferret owner, purchasing or adopting them as personal pets and at times helping adoptable ferrets find new homes until she formally established her home as a private shelter in April of 2000. She began with roughly 15 ferrets.

“I was just the type to make society aware,” Frazier said. “There weren’t many shelters for ferrets at the time so I started my own.”

After meeting Oeming in 2001, she moved the operation to Oak Park until 2003 when they purchased their current home in Hazel Park together. The amount of space they could afford to provide for the animals grew and so they took more in.

Running a rescue operation of this size is no simple task, nor is it a cheap one with a price tag this year of $10,000. Frazier says because they are a private shelter, they receive no federal funding and whatever they don’t raise themselves comes from their personal funds.

There are multiple costs involved in keeping a ferret and this is multiplied exponentially in a shelter situation. Food is bought in bulk, as is litter and vitamin supplements, and even with a friendly and sympathetic veterinarian, the price of vaccinations and treatment of illness can be very high.

Frazier believes that the reason so many look to surrender this exotic pet to shelters is because of lack of preparation. “People say they smell or that they decided to have kids, and so the pets take on a second tier status,” she said.

According to “Ferrets for Dummies,” a book Frazier recommends to any prospective ferret owner, these animals need at least two hours of play outside the cage daily or they become bored and depressed. These intelligent creatures can also be litter-trained to an extent and sleep as much as 14 hours every day.

Applicants who wish to adopt a new pet from Motor City Ferrets are given a crash course in ferret care. Frazier or Oeming then introduce possible matches to the owner-to-be and all family members, including pets, before sending any ferret off to a new home.

On a recent visit, Oeming showed off some of the quirkier residents of the shelter including Seth, a playful cinnamon-colored baby ferret (called a “kit”), who pounces on shoes. Others include Antonio, who has a noticeable under bite, Duke, who climbs everything he can, and Penny, a ferret that has a knack for sneaking into cages rather than out.

He also showed off Elyse, a white female whose previous owner sometimes hit her and so now she is afraid of hands and bites them out of fear. Until she gets over this habit she cannot be adopted, and Frazier fears that day may never come because of the abuse she’s received.

Each ferret has an individual personality and some simply don’t get along with one another and so they come out to play on a rotating schedule at MCF. When one group is put back in its cages, another is let out to roam a blocked-off portion of the basement, which is affectionately referred to as “the ferret room.”

“They always make me laugh—except when they’re biting me,” Oeming jokes when asked what he finds most rewarding about operating a shelter.

When answering the same question, Frazier quotes Gandhi, saying “the greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.” She adds that every animal that comes to them is a pet until they are adopted.

You can get more information at their website, www.motorcityferrets.org