A Labor of Love

Dec. 4, 2009

By Sadie Moser

Melanee Ellis, a dark-haired woman dressed in a pink jump suit, stands barefoot in her living room, gently cradling 4-year-old Brody in her arms. Brody has the swine flu.

Brody lost half her body weight and most of her hair, and Ellis is a little worried. She carefully drops medicine on Brody’s nose from an eyedropper to help unclog her sinuses, and Brody snuggles against Ellis’ arm and barely moves.

“When she can’t smell her food she stops eating,” Ellis said. “She gets this medicine twice a day.”

Brody is a ferret, one of two-dozen Ellis cares for at the Lane Area Ferret Lovers’ Ferret Shelter & Rescue — a one-woman operation run by “The Ferret Lady” of Eugene.

“It isn’t as much work as you might think,” she said. “Except during flu season. Then it gets interesting.”

There are 1.9 million ferrets in the United States according to the American Pet Products Association. The APPA said over 40 percent of them will wind up homeless and in need of rescue.

But for Ellis, the ferrets rescued her.

Ellis, 49, was living in Juneau, Alaska with her husband when her mother passed away. She had seasonal depression and the death of her mother put her over the edge.

“I couldn’t get out of bed. I cried all the time. I ate all the time,” she said. “I truly didn’t want to live any more. It was devastating for me.”

While researching depression online, Ellis read that pets could help curb many of the symptoms. However she was terribly allergic to cats and living in an apartment too small for dogs. Then, while browsing the newspaper one morning, she saw an ad for a free ferret.

“I realized I had wanted one when I was 16, but my mother wouldn’t let me get one. I thought: maybe here was a chance to test it out and see how I liked it.”

She discussed it with her husband, and he agreed to go look at it with her. They both fell in love and brought him home. His name was Bosley and he quickly became their baby.

Almost immediately things started looking up for Ellis.

“I was smiling again, getting out of bed in the morning, even laughing,” she said. “Having Bosley in my life made all the difference and really helped me to move past my mother’s death.”

Eventually Ellis and her husband decided to move to Medford, Ore. to live with her brother after 30 years in Alaska.

“Juneau was a little small town and everybody knew everybody’s business,” she said. “I just couldn’t stand it anymore, and I told my husband I have to get out of here.”

While passing through Eugene, they fell in love again. The bike paths, trees, vibrant colors and beautiful mountains caught their eyes, and five years later they made it their home.

In 1995, while living in a little apartment with their two ferrets, Bosley and Bobo, Ellis put an ad out in the paper for a ferret party hoping to meet other ferret owners in the area.

“We had 15 people show up and 35 ferrets,” she said. “I met people who were interested in starting a shelter and so we said ‘What the heck’ and did it.”

The process wasn’t easy. They applied for and got a 501c3 federal non-profit status and got a business license to become an official non-profit shelter. These crucial steps separate the shelter from so-called “hoarders.”

“One of the things about hoarders is that they will not let their animals go,” Ellis said. “We adopt out. There are certain ones that are never going to be adopted and we understand that. Is that considered hoarding that we give comfort and care to animals that nobody’s ever going to want?”

In 2002, they moved the shelter to Ellis’ house, where it has been ever since.

The shelter is located in a back bedroom. A blue sheet hangs over the single window, and double-decker ferret cages line all four walls. The floor is a cream-colored vinyl and there are litter boxes in every corner. A tall shelf runs along the far wall stuffed with extra blankets and toys. Over 20 ferrets call this room home. More ferrets live at a sister shelter in Toledo, Ore.

When prospective ferret owners come to the shelter, they end up in this back room. But before anyone is allowed to see the ferrets, Ellis screens them first.

“They have to go through an interview process, and if they don’t answer questions to my liking, they don’t get to come over,” she said. “You as a ferret owner should learn as much as possible about taking care of a ferret before you try and get one. I’m not here to answer your questions. You should have the answers.”

Ellis doesn’t recommend ferrets for just anyone. They have special needs, are middle aged by the time they are five and are prone to very serious diseases.

“They need a lot of human interaction to be healthy,” she said. “Petting them, holding them, talking to them. Too many people go down to Petco and go ‘Oh my god he’s so cute,’ then pick him up and never take him to the vet or let him out of the cage. It’s not like taking care of a rat or mice. They’re just not easy pets to take care of.”

In addition to running the shelter, Ellis also arranges an annual ferret event and designs a Christmas website for shelters in need. The Ferret Agility Trials is an annual fundraiser every summer. There are games for ferrets such as the tub run, dirt digging and a cup tip over.

“A lot of people complain we are charging so much for everything,” Ellis said. “But you know we have a $10,000 vet bill.”

Ellis’ winter project is the Ferret Giving Tree. She took over the domain name from its original creator who had established it a few years before. It is a website where shelters across the globe can create an account and put ten of their ferrets on a “tree.” Other people can find the website and pick a shelter to donate money to. When someone donates to a particular ferret on a tree that ferret has a “Santa.”

“One of our goals is to make sure all the ferrets on the tree get Santas,” she said.

Even with all the work she puts into the shelter, Ellis has a full time job.  She doesn’t mind the extra during the flu season when the work triples. Brody is one of her personal ferrets, but she doesn’t play favorites.

“They are all my children,” she said. “I might not be here without them.”