Nicole Flint used to work in emergency response. After she was diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), she moved to Tasmania and got herself a ferret as a pet. She named him Deamon. Flint never intended for Deamon to be an assistance animal until she realized that Deamon was helping her cope with her PTSD.
Flint says, “Wherever I felt anxious, he would sense that and he would come and sit with me until the anxiety passed.” Because of Deamon’s help, Flint realized that maybe ferrets could be trained to respond to emotional distress. Flint started training several rescued ferrets herself.
Flint knows that there are no service animal accreditations in Tasmania. She looked to the United States so her ferrets could be officially recognized. What she did was that she filmed one of her ferrets doing “service work” to prove the ferret’s abilities.
Although she knows that service or companion animals should be dogs, she believes that ferrets could serve as alternatives. According to her, there are cases in which a person is simply not allowed to have a dog. Flint says, “[Ferrets are] compact, they’re smart, you can have them in flats.”
Article source: Abc.net.au
Are you an owner of an assistance animal?
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