Up until yesterday at 12pm, I was a proud owner of a 6 year old white netherland dwarf bunny named Yayo.
A week or so ago I noticed he was getting thinner…two weeks prior to that I blamed it on his moulting ( shedding fur) and thats why he looked thinner than normal. He was still eating regularly and pooping regularly, so I didn’t think anything of it.
Along with the weight loss, I noticed Yayo’s eyes were tearing and he had wetness around his mouth and nose. I looked at his incisors and noticed they were overgrown..so I figured he wasn’t able to eat properly because of that and that’s why he was losing weight. I brought him to the vet and she said his teeth needed to be trimmed but there seems to be a bigger issue involved. After an xray and a physical exam, the vet diagnosed Yayo with a tooth absess behind his left molar that had spread to the jaw bone.
I was very upset, and said to the vet I would do anything for him to get better. The vet said it is unlikely that his tooth absess will ever be cured..but reading so many articles online and hearing of many rabbits recovering from this, I wanted to give it a shot. So the day he was diagnosed, our course of action towards recovery was to try giving injectable antibiotics every three days. He had his shot that day, and the vet sent us home with some critical care and I made an appointment for Friday July 27th at 9am to get his second antibiotic shot…little did I know, I made an appointment for his death. :'(
Before I go further, if there is any advice, expertise or knowledge you can lend to help me better understand what happened to my bunny I would GREATLY appreciate it. I’m having a very hard time coping.
So I woke up bright and early the day of his appointment and went out to say good morning and to get him ready to go. He seemed more chipper that day than any other day that week.. I figured he was getting more energetic being on the critical care and being able to eat more.. he was eating like a champ. So that made me happy, and I was ready to get his shot over with so I could spend my day off work with him playing around the house.
I brought him to the vet, and the Doctor felt his tummy and checked him out.. said he was still really thin and weak but he looked better than the last visit..which was good. The vet then got the needle to inject the antibiotic. I held Yayo’s body while the vet tried injecting the needle.. Yayo squirmed and the vet said the needle seemed a little dull.. so he got another one. When injecting the needle into Yayo, he squirmed more aggressively, and then started screaming with terror.. I was horrified and immediately started screaching my eyes out asking what was wrong..the vet held him and massaged his body where the needle went and he started screaming again.. I was horrified! The vet put yayo on the floor to see if he could stand.. he was flopping to the side, it seemed like his back leg was paralized or really hurt from the needle..and he was breathing heavy. The vet then put him in his kennel to lay down and he laid on his side and looked very stressed and worn out..the doctor said he looked very weak and said he was going to adminsiter some oxygen..he took Yayo out back while I waited for what seemed like a lifetime.
Once the vet returned to me, he said “sit down” .. hearing those words from a doctor is never good and I knew what was coming.
The vet said he didn’t think Yayo was going to make it, that he’s too stressed out and he’s in shock. I cried and cried and asked to be with him.. the vet set us up in a private room with an oxygen tank to help him breathe. Yayo was still alive but I could tell he wasn’t coherent. He was just lying down with no strength to even lift his head and he was twitching as if he was having a seizure for over an hour. The vet told me he was dying, and I accepted that this was the end for Yayo…but I cried and cried and cried some more, and I held him in my arms close to my chest, kissing him and telling him how much I loved him as he was taking his last breaths.. I felt him have a seizure, then I felt his heart stop.. I knew he was gone. That was the hardest day of my life.
What I don’t understand is how can he die of a needle? Do you think the vet did something wrong and injected him in a painful place, maybe hitting a nerve or do you think he was just too thin and frail to take the pain and he just stressed out and went into shock which made his body shut down?
I don’t understand the process of death in rabbits, he was just in a trance state, twitching for an hour and then he died..we couldn’t do anything, we were completely hopeless.
I miss him and love him so much and life will never be the same without him.