I have been wanting to write this one for a while but every time I tried to type, I would break down in floods of tears. But I’ve got my big girl pants on today and i’m feeling brave.

I had Gareth as a lone bun for 6 years. He was very well bonded with me, would follow me everywhere, loved cuddles & pets from me but wasn’t keen on anyone else touching him for more than a little head rub. We had an amazing friendship. I decided to get him a pal as when I moved out of my parents he would be spending up to 9 hours a day in a house alone (no humans or dog around anymore) rather than 4 hours a day alone until mum finished work at dinner. He had personality by the bucket load and everyone who met him loved him, people used to tell me he was just like a dog in the way he acted.

His First bunwife was Terri (Chocolate Orange Mini Rex) an ex breeding rabbit adopted from Warrington. They started off in cages side by side with separate play time in the living room. I moved house shortly after (Yey, neutral ground) so they lived together from then on.  She was with us for around 12 months but she had to be put to sleep when a tumour in her tummy ruptured one day, poor little thing, she was a lovely girl, would lie on the sofa with me for hours and go to sleep laying on my tummy.

I didn’t know then about leaving the body with the remaining bun after death, this lead to Gareth running from one place to another looking for Terri for weeks after she had gone, poor little man, couldn’t bare seeing him so upset so I decided to go to an animal rescue and let him pick his next bunwife.

His Second bunwife was Cinders (Black crossbreed), she came from Freshfields animal rescue, she was much younger than him, he was 7 by this time and she was around 12 months they guessed (Sugar daddy). I left Gareth with them so they could do the bonding this time due to not having neutral space and needing time to clean the flat before bringing another bun in. I still have Cinders now.

In Sept 15 Gareth started getting a  bit wobbly on his back legs, he would be cleaning himself then he would topple over and lie there looking at me as if to say “Mum, what just happened?”, that broke my heart. He was always such a healthy bun, flew through the snip at 6 years old and bounced back in no time, such a tough little cookie. The vet gave him some anti-inflammatory injections to see if it was due to injury (these were one every 3 days I think). He would still stumble but he wasn’t in pain and was getting about really well. As the anti injections & Metacam were working, we kept it up but moved onto longer lasting injections. In the beginning the injections lasted 4 weeks before I noticed a change in how well he was getting around. At 9 years old I didn’t want to put him through a scan to find the definite cause and the vet said treatment wouldn’t be much different anyway, so we carried on with the Metacam and the regular vet visits for injections & the regular butt baths until what felt like overnight the injections were only lasting a week. I knew the time was coming that I would have to show him the last act of kindness (It’s got dusty in here all of a sudden). I took him to the vets for his last injection, I knew I would only have a week with him at this point so my boy got strawberries/ vimto/ carrots/ anything he wanted, every day. We spent every night on the floor together, I would stroke him and he would like my arm for hours. I miss him.

5 days later on Thursday 21st April 2016 I called my best friend and told her the time had come, she came to my house and I picked him up in my dressing gown that he loved to groom (whether I was wearing it or not) & we went and sat out on the grass with Gareth one last time whilst he ate some dandelions and a Russell Rabbit carrot biscuit (his favourite). This is the last picture I took of him, my gorgeous little man, the love of my life

His final resting place: On the table he loved to sit under

It fells like I have just relived this all over again, maybe I should have done this at the time