[gallery size="medium" ids="1955817,1955818,1955819,1955820,1955821,1955822,1955823,1955824"]

Hello,  I lost my Milo who we also called (Bun buns) on October 24th 2021. Milo began to fall ill around the beginning of October and showed some unusual signs about the last week of September. I actually had him a scheduled appointment for October 7th (At another vet than my usual one) but I had to bring him back to the prior vet as it’s the only way I could get him quickly seen. Almost a month later and I’m still feeling like a piece of me is missing and it’s such a heartache without him, I’m still in disbelief my Milo is gone. I actually left 4 days after his passing to go and spend some time with my boyfriend before the travel ban lifted in the UK, I couldn’t bear the emptiness of my bedroom.

So what happened with Milo, Milo had been battling Snuffles Pasteurella for almost a year prior to this. The white mucus in his nose and watery/tear stained crusty eyes never completely went away. When he first developed snuffles he also had what appeared to be a reddish white looking penis. He was treated with a few different things over the course of this year, Enrofloxacin, Azithromycin,  and Penicillin G injected once a week for three weeks under the skin. This seemed to calm down/clear up his eyes a bit and the redness, around his eyes however the white sticky discharge in his nose never fully went away. I would always use q-tips and swab at the side of his nose every night, but his sneezing was never terrible it was just on and off and I kept his immunity up with the use of Echinacea in his drinking water. The vet I had would only check his incisors and general weight, but that was about it. She told me he would require on and off again treatment of antibiotics for his snuffles and most likely he had developed chronic snuffles. She took a nose swab and came back and said it was Pasteurella/snuffles. She had done the swab and came back within a matter of minutes however. I was a bit skeptical of that. I felt responsible for his snuffles as I would clean his litter box every few days and take bits out here and there.

Fast forward a half a year later, his eye began to get runny/crusty again and I had read up on what look like facial asymmetry, it appeared he had this on the one side of his face. I brought him to the vet she gave me doxycycline which cleared it up a little bit but it ensued still after a little while as well as some sneezing flare ups from time to time, but these would fade with the echinacea. He had developed nystagmus of his eyes he would eat and every once in a while he would just start moving his face from side to side in like a daze and seemingly then snap out of it. The vet gave him dewormer for e cuniculi but ignored his eye that began to look weepy again on the same side of the asymmetric looking cheek and would not offer much about his teeth or looking at them more thoroughly, she said his face looked fine and that if these were the only issues he had it wasn’t the most terrible thing, she mostly was talking to him rather than me.  I read the cheek looking asymmetric could be from a compressed nerve/facial swelling arising from dental issues. I could never seem to feel anything puffy then again I didn’t really know exactly what to look for which is why I relied on the vet to be able to.

I took him to another vet for another opinion about two months later, he was given enrofloxacin somehow with one of those pill pushers and I was told she was able to see the back of his teeth with a tongue depressor ( no idea how) and there seemed to be no issues. It was here I was told that my rabbit was actually a Himalayan lop eared rabbit, a rare breed but this vet had previous had lops for show rabbits. She informed me I needed to get him advantage for flea control as he had a lot of flea dirt, I was using ovitrol for this on a cotton ball monthly but it was not working. The fleas were because we have two small dogs and have two cats. The advantage seemed to work pretty good except for during the summer months where fleas like to be a bit more rampant. Things were fine for a little while, but I did notice some strange things looking back. Like sometimes he seemed to randomly be clumsy on his feet or have a hard time getting up sometimes, I put this down to the linoleum flooring. Milo had an issue with poopy butt throughout this year and was fed lots of timothy hay, spring mix at night, or romaine, with some dill on top, occasional things like blueberries/a slice of apple and oxbow pellets limited amounts. Despite this though he still appeared to have poopy butt a lot and he was very used to getting butt baths. I would use baby wipes/puppy pads/ water soaked cotton balls/cornstarch and pat him dry as I went. He would actually stick his butt up for me and when he had enough of being groomed/ having his butt bath he would dig at my bed where was the easiest place for me to do all of this. Sometimes I even got sprayed at, he had such a personality about him. He was a bit skittish being albino but allowed me to trim his nails without too much of a fuss and I would moisten cotton swabs and clean his eyes without a fuss.

My parents pet sit my Milo while I was visiting my boyfriend in London June this year, and I would regularly video chat with them and check on my bunny, I had a very detailed list of what to do, feed etc.. they did very good with him on a few occasions where they had to pet sit him for me. When I returned home… I was doing his regular cleaning and it appeared that he had greenish/yellowish gunk coming out of his ear. I went back to my regular vet (as the other one was a bit too far out and I wasn’t really sure about her) they used virbac epiotic cleanser on his ear and said it wasn’t a concern and from this point on said it was his nystagmus and gave him more de wormer for e cuniculi and some doxycycline which didn’t really help to clear things up. At some point he was also given 3-5 days worth of tresaderm for his ears. I had noticed for a little while that he was peeing a lot and drinking a lot. He still was acting as normal as ever and still joining me everyday underneath my desk to sleep on his mat, or when I went to bed at night he would sleep under my tv stand on his blanket/near the side of my bed right near me or under my bed. This cleared his ear up for a little while.  This is where my vet and I began to disagree on the treatment and she refused to take a culture or do anything further for his ear, he was scratching at his ear and it seemed he could not hear me anymore. I brought him to another vet which was kind of close ish. This vet did a swab on his ear and said it was cocci bacteria and prescribed me albun/or album? oral which i also found was used to treat coccidia this confused me but I figured well it’s worth a shot. Looking back this makes me feel terrible because of the fear of otoxicity with rabbits, but he was also given tresaderm again this time for two weeks. This did seem to get the swelling down but at the second appointment the vet said it was half way clear and gave me a anti fungal ear wash to put in Milo’s ear, I had also still had virbac from the other vet which I used every other day on Milo’s ears. When I used the anti fungal one… it seemed to be bringing up a lot of ear wax but it never seemed to clear his ear pus fully and it still carried on. I had another appointment for October 7th, unfortunately this was moved up do to my family and I all having a lot of medical appointments, so I had no choice but to move it up a week or so.

However by the last week of September I had said to heck with my regular vet as I was more or less told ” most people opt to put their rabbits down because of the “disturbing” look of rabbits with e cuniculi and they feel their rabbit is suffering. Milo did not have a head tilt, or anything strange at this point and they were basically telling me there was nothing else they could do for him besides give him a de wormer, me and the vet constantly bickered it felt like through email on what was “appropriate” and she more or less ignored my last email to her at this point. Beginning of October Milo randomly peed underneath my bed one day and this was very unusual for him. I also noticed he was hunching his butt up towards the end of his litter pan as well. I thought well okay just another 3-4 days to go, and I began to give him those oxbow urinary support tablets thinking it was something to do with that and made sure to keep everything very clean. (Bleach never dawned on me at this time, I just used my regular Swiffer jet). He would never drink from a water bottle either so I made sure I was washing his  automatic refill water dish out at least every 4-5 days I admit though I do feel guilty that at times, I cleaned his water dish sometimes after a week and feel terrible about that now, no matter if it was 3-4, 5-7 days it seemed it would get a bit slimy on the inside but I did my best to keep any debris out of it every day.

For about a month when he ate his greens I noticed it looked like on the one side of his face he would unstable like be rocking his head from side to side whenever he seemed to grab the larger pieces of lettuce leaf’s. I had mentioned this to my regular vet, but nothing. Milo began to go downhill he started to look wobbly and off balanced, and I don’t even recall the day this happened if he had taken a drink from his water dish or not I thought he may have early on in the day. It was at this point I noticed he wasn’t really trying to go after his hay/pellets… a dramatic shift from the night before. I put towels all around his usual area and blankets as he was under the card table I had and padded everything as good as I could and he seemed to be sort of pressing his sides against every surfaced he moved onto. He was still going into his litter box but very unstable like. I believe I had him into my regular vet the next day. He was given doxycycline, Meloxicam, de wormer again, metoclopramide to get his gut moving and some critical care. I began to give him this and was told to try and encourage his hay feeding, which at this point he refused hay and pellets, and his greens, I was given him syringe fed oxbow critical care but was not instructed on how much exactly so I think I was giving him near 30 ml a day with water in between that, which was very hard as for some reason on that same side of his face with the affected ear, cheek, eye…. whatever I would put in while it was going in was also dribbling out of this side of his mouth. I had to put his cheek on my hand and put a paper towel under it as well. Fast forward a day or so… Milo had completely began to lose all balance and him trying to go into his litterbox was becoming a serious hazard (the high back corner litter pan) and I had to put a blanket down near it so he would not trip in/out to try and prevent that as much as I could. He began to circle and started to hide away from me and then the rolling began. He started rolling uncontrollably and it was the scariest thing I have ever witnessed and instinctively I had to reach out my hand and keep him in my arms to stop him from rolling into things and get it to stop. I was trying to figure out what to do to keep him safe. Unfortunately he did fall into the table legs.. and by the next day I had him in a large padded box with lots of little windows surrounded by rolled blankets with a big comfy blanket underneath and a puppy pad under him. Milo could not move anymore except for rolling when he tried. It was heartbreaking. There were many times I broke down throughout this. His eye on the bad side of his face began to look very red swollen and was moving up and down tell tale sign of e cuniculi while the other was still left to right. I had him to the vets where he was given a shot to control the dizziness, subcutaneous fluids, and enrofloxacin FINALLY for his “ear infection” which they had refused all along to recognize all contributing to his dizziness and rolling.

By day I had him on my bed with rolled up towels far away from the edge on a puppy pad. He had begun to poop normally again ( after he had passed what looked like large wadded up poop with my hair and his fur mixed in” there was some soft poops and then finally larger and larger regular ones. He was beginning to eat some hay for me, some greens, and I was instructed by one of the vet techs to give him around 73 ml critical care a day I did this with water in the syringes as well in-between. I had also been giving him a little pumpkin baby food about 1 ml or some of the mixed pear apple one to give him with his baytril. He was given subcutaneous fluids as he was dehydrated and had lost some weight (despite me giving him almost 40-50 ml of water a day myself. I did hear the fluids going into his gut but my poor bunny had this problem where it came out of the side of his mouth and most of the time he was moving his head away from me so I could not give him the water, he would accept the critical care willingly though. His down eye and face rested on his leg which became bald from the moisture and I did my best to keep clean and dry as well as his bottom/legs/feet from the urine. I constantly changed his puppy pads. I had an ointment for his eye I had to put on 3 times daily. This seemed to be improving it quite a lot but it was very gradual. I felt so bad as when I cleaned  his eye i had to gently remove whatever stuck cotton ball was there as I previously tried cotton balls wet with water and it was a bad idea as it stuck to the sticky discharge matter, the eye was very sore and red looking. I also had to fight daily to keep hay bits from going onto it/food.

Milo seemed to start to pick his body up for water/critical care and the rolling had started to stop… he even seemed to be able to sort of scooch his back legs and would at times move forward seemingly to get closer to where I was on the bed, he seemed happiest this way. I was also very concerned at this time because his Pasteurella became for the first time virulent, sneezing, and lots of discharge I was wiping it away from his nose almost 8 times a day or more and he would start this sort of wheezing sound in his chest at times which seemed to get better when I wiped his nose or he sneezed. This seemed to get better with more echinacea. I also gave him some probiotic powder onto his greens when he started to eat them again every night. One bad thing though, he still seemed to be having these weird big mushy poops in-between his normal ones I was finding in the morning and no sign of “good cetrophs” and he was forming any for me to be able to give him… and the one time I managed to find some he would not eat them. He was also getting very scrawny looking despite me now feeding him hay, greens, critical care and even at this point he began to accept some pellets. I was of the mind of if I can get him to eat the greens then its more fluids. I wonder if this however contributed to the weird smelling big mushy poops and my mother would take over in the early morning as I was up half the night with him keep him dry clean. She gave him some carrot baby food and some pieces of apple as we were just trying our darndest to get him to eat/get fluids. I feel really bad about this looking back because of the sugars, I was doing my best to keep the sugars down for him but it was in everything all of his medicines just about and the baby food, probably even the critical care.

Just when it seemed Milo’s eye was getting better and was almost fully healed and whenever I fed him he would snuggle his cheek onto my hand, I don’t know if he was trying to tell me he didn’t want me to keep trying the water or his way of cuddling up to me after the feedings, but it seemed his chest stopped the wheezy sound as much. The vet when I asked if there was anything I could do for the rattling in the chest she just said “no”. It wasn’t all that helpful though I did get some Vicks into a bowl of water and let the vapors in the air from a distance to help him a bit. My milo would sigh every once in a while. I stupidly let the vet talk me into the acupuncture therapy for Milo, which seemed ok at first but then when they put a small needle into his foot area it looked like it hurt and he was still rolling and suddenly rolled onto his side definitely not safe. I then declined the second booking for the electro therapy one not wanting to put my poor Milo through any more.

I took him back to the vet on what would have been a Thursday before October 24th when he passed away and he had lost a significant amount of weight. I felt guilty the few days he was eating hay and stuff better for not giving him a lot of critical care but more the water. I was doing everything to get the water in but it was very difficult between the water and critical care as the plunger would get stopped up and spurt out i would have to quickly wipe it away from the area by his nose as it was very hard to prop his head up, he wanted to always take it from the side of his face lying down. Looking back I felt like this was a big mistake but when I would prop him up his head would go all over the place. He went from 4 pounds down to about 3.4 and the vet said he was still looking dehydrated despite everything I was doing. I was so frustrated, I was given more critical care and more eye ointment as the other eye was very runny and a bit irritated as well, but the eye was just about healed. Milo was not rolling anymore and the nystagmus was getting better… but he was back to not wanting to eat as much hay hence why the apple bits came in when my mother and I were trying everything.. I would weigh him on the scale I had and it still seemed he had lost another 2-3 oz and was not gaining anything. I was more or less told good luck over the weekend by the tech I called on Friday. Saturday night… he had not peed for what seemed like hours despite fluids and care fresh. I think since early afternoon, I was more afraid by what seemed to be very mushy smelly poop developing at a fast rate. When I went to clean his eye either this saturday night or the night before he let out a weird sounding gurgle rattle noise for a few seconds which still haunts me to this day. I had to dab his eye slightly with wetted tissue paper as hay bits were getting into it despite my best effort and this is when that noise occurred.

I had not heard his lungs rattle since before he had began to improve. He was very lethargic and seemed to be sleeping a lot. And I was keeping him warm with water bottles, his ears were cold but I was keeping him warm and comfortable. He ate more at night with the meloxicam and stimulant as usual by now we were down to the stimulant being used once a day. I have a feeling his kidneys were no longer functioning well and the whitish reddish looking penis had returned. I had to clean him constantly with the poop coming out at this rate, and keep him dry. His legs were shaking a bit as I did this which they had not done before, the easiest way was to put him on his back which he did not seem to mind. I got him to eat some hay with a lot of persistence and some water and as much critical care as I could. I even put a little extra probiotic powder in the water this Saturday night ( which I feel awful for doing but I was desperate) and was trying to do everything I could to save him. Weeks before I thought i saw a slight bluish tint to his lips which the vet didn’t seem to notice but even the tech seemed a little weirded out about. Despite this though he was not mouth breathing but his breaths did seem to be more deeper at times with the stuffy nose and without. His nose wasn’t discharging as much anymore. It was more like a sucked in looking breath when he did it, then it would return back to normal. I was told by the tech that rabbits would hold some water in their mouth and then swallow as I expressed concerns about his aspirating. There were times I would syringe the water in and it didn’t appear that he was swallowing id put in a little more then he would but this last night, it seemed like after two squirts he still wasn’t and then he would a little. This is also causing me such horrible feelings of guilt that i somehow made him aspirate but if he did I didn’t know it, I only saw at one point what seemed like a cough coming from his chest as it was moving as if he was coughing twice. There was no audible cough though.

Warning: These details might be a bit unsettling and it describes what happened when Milo passed.

I put Milo down for bed with a blanket over his sides but away from his face/feet…. not sure what to hope/expect for. I stayed up until 4 am with him… and my mother awoke me around 9 am October  24th, 2021 on a Sunday and said she thought he was gone. I looked in the box and milo appeared to be still sleeping on his side but with his eye slightly closed as it was before I put him down for sleep and it appeared his teeth looked a little clenched, and his lips were slightly blue. He still felt warm to the touch and his eyes were still very watery looking. I could not understand what actually happened. The last two days… he wasn’t putting his head into my hand after the feedings as well.. he didn’t appear to be reacting to my touch. I also cleaned his ears still every two days and he still was shaking/flicking his ears afterwards as usual. The big change was him not moving at all anymore and he had lost his balance again, and his one leg seemed to be more splayed. He had matted/stained bluish green fur under his mouth which i did everything to keep clean and the matted fur had some bald spots and some brownish crusts which I had corn starched and cleaned also.

I was in shock. I layed Milo on my bed just to be sure he wasn’t in a state of shock. I kept Milo on my bed for several hours just to be sure and even cleaned his bottom and body one final time, I didn’t want him to have anything on him. Instinct and routine I guess, this was my way of comforting myself and going through the shock. Hours later his ears were ice cold but his body still warm. I didn’t know if this was down to my room temperature or what, but his body was not still at all, even hours later. The only part that appeared to be was his mouth/jaw area. His gums looked pale white. His eyes still just as glossy looking as if he was alive. For some reason I kept thinking he was still alive somehow and was afraid to move him. However the first time I had moved him to put him on my bed and then a while later… it seemed the pee he never peed the night before leaked out of his body. Lots of it was leaking out and I changed puppy pads a few more times. I had my parents both look at him to be sure. I felt awful, I never heard a sound, never heard a thing, and how badly I wished I would have been awake to keep him safe and feeling loved. I petted him twice before I went to sleep and checked on him and just like that in the wee hours of the morning he was gone. I feel comforted that I gave him Meloxicam before he went to sleep the final night though.

We wrapped him up in his favorite blanket since the day I had received him and with his sheep next to him (his favorite stuffed animal) into a lunch type cooler bag. I couldn’t bear to place him in the freezer so I kept him on our porch where it was cool over night. The next day we took him to our local vet so he could be cremated. I was given his ashes in a heart shaped box and two heart shaped paw prints from him. When I had last taken him to his regular vet I demanded a swab be done on his ear and the results turned up a week after he passed away (yes a week) as they did not do cultures at their office and had it sent away.

His ear culture was positive for pseudomonas argenosia. It was resistant to every single antibiotic he was given. The vet was clearly p.oed I never got him, his second “acupuncture therapy” appointment and made sure she charged me the same amount for his ear culture and even taunted me it was cost a lot. Before that she tried to force me into a second acupuncture booking by saying ” I would hate to see him go down hill” and I was so angry and upset words couldn’t describe. Had this vet done the ear culture like I had asked her to so many times the year before, all I could think is… this never would have happened to my Milo. He never would have became so ill that he got e cuniculi or the severe symptoms. I just hope my poor bunny did not suffer… I feel terrible I did not “end his decline” as the vet later put it to me, as she was upset I told her off on many points, she stated I was not receptive to end his decline which was false. Instead she kept taking my appointments and refused to refer me to somewhere that may have done cultures/bloodwork and everything else he probably needed long ago.

I did some research and it appears pseudomonas argenosia can even be a bacteria that causes Pasteurella. Which then caused his ear infection and deafness. He couldn’t hear me at all the last few months even though his other ear only seemed to have wax in it, not so much pus as the other which became more virulent near the end as well. The vet even had the gall to tell me that his ears were not infected after he had passed on. How are they not infected seriously, if just a week before that this same vet was telling me they wanted to put him under to flush out his ears, what good was that going to do at this stage in the game? I more or less told her I lost him due to their negligence and ignoring me a year earlier. I even stated they could have given me more fluids or a referral to which they stated it was my responsibility as well to ask for a referral and Cornell was “booked” up full so much that they referred a few of their exotics to this vet. I found that hard to believe when they had never done blood work on my bunny. He would have been 7 years old March 2022. He was about 6.5 when he passed. He could have had quite a few years left. He was a Holland lop and was a lone rabbit that just lived with me. Which is why I was even more confused as to how he developed all of these things.

I feel guilty because of his water dishes and his litter box that I didn’t get to sometimes for a few days longer. For maybe not putting him down when I really thought he was trying so hard to survive and he really was until the last week, for being terrified I might have aspirated him. I was also horrified after he passed on to discover his hay satchel which I hung above his litter box I had made a makeshift hanger on his vet kennel as we were doing some room work ( we found mold on the outside of my room) his satchel had what appeared to be some fuzzy mold on the bottom which went unnoticed as it must have come into contact with his urine. I felt beyond horrible and have. I had been nursing Milo for probably well over a year between his poopy butt then these terrible illnesses. I think because his urine had not come out until I moved him after he had passed away there must have been some kidney involvement and since the vet told me to continue giving him the meloxicam until it was gone, maybe it had compromised his kidneys further which probably had damage from the e cuniculi as well as his nervous system/brain.

What I don’t understand is how his rolling stopped/and he appeared to gain some movement back and then he just went completely downhill. I feel awful there was no where I could take him to get seen that final night, when I had found him when he passed on there was even more of the liquid puddle like big mushy poop and it smelt bad. The vet office just kept saying give him more hay. It was so hard to get him to eat enough. He probably was very imbalanced from not being able to eat cecals and the sugars made it worse. I had never had to give so many medications or do syringe feeding before. I don’t understand what that weird wheeze/groan sound was towards the last night or leading upto and if that meant he was in pain it saddens and horrifies me. I keep looking back and wondering what else I could have possibly done. At one point I even felt like I was probably starving my poor rabbit despite him getting the nutrients. I was more afraid after he passed though that he was still alive in there somewhere due to the fact that all of the sudden his pee came out when I moved him when I did not find him in his box where he passed on with any urine whatsoever and due to his eyes looking so clear, i also read if their gums were pale they could be in shock. But no matter how hard i tried to find it… I could not see him breathing. He never got cold.

The next day I went onto the porch where i placed him in the cooler type bag to say my final goodbye before bringing him to the local vet office for his cremation, and he still was not stiff which I did not understand. What else made me so sad and scared was when I had put him in the cooler bag, the day he passed, his eye that had remained slightly opened seemed to shut when I put him in, that may have been because his body was a little curled though. He still looked the same the next day though.

To me Milo was more than just my bunny, but my baby and he was there for me after I almost lost my life too to a horrible pancreatitis attack that was severe and necrotizing that caused pneumonia and a blood clot to my lungs. I was very lucky and Milo was there for me through some dark times. He had such a personality about him too. He slept under my desk near me all of the time would grunt and come up to me first thing in the morning it was hard to walk without him weaving between my legs. He loved his stuffed sheep and was married to it if you know what I mean. And he would even go up to my curtains and twirl them around. I read somewhere that a rabbit that sleeps next to you with their stomach exposed trusts you very much and that is what he did with me all of the time. Losing him has been very hard and came as such a shock when I thought for sure, just like all of the other times he would get better. The first few nights I swear it was me holding him in my arms and keeping him warm that saved him nearly then. He had knocked water over and I had to do everything i could to keep him warm and dry.

I’m not sure what everyone else’s experiences are or have been with these awful diseases, I even messaged Cornell to ask what might have gone wrong, what exactly could have happened and its still hard for me to grasp. Why he had continued losing weight and peeing so much out before his decline despite every effort. I especially didn’t understand what happened with the side of his face where everything seemed to get affected. I did notice that near his ears/underneath it smelt like a beer smell which was very unusual. Despite me cleaning the area this smell did not dissapear. The only thing I did seem to notice is that.. the side of his mouth that the water/food seemed to come out of his cheek on this side seemed a little bigger than the other, but my mom was not certain of this when I showed her too. The vet disregarded me as usual. Unfortunately in my area good vets are hard to come by, but I did find another ( too late) that was near another area that even has dealt with zoo animals so who knows. When I was away my sister happened upon a rabbit someone was giving up due to relocating, that had already been through another owner. She is a large white/brown spotted rabbit and I’m taking everything I’ve learned her and ensuring this never happens again. The entire area has been cleaned with bleach before she arrived. I felt it was a little too soon but when I heard how she was basically just being given up my heart couldn’t let it happen, couldn’t bear to think that this rabbit could be rehomed again and again.

So here’s to a new journey…. Rest in peace my Milo boy ( my bun buns and also snoogle floogins, snarfle flarfles, mun muns, funny bunny) he had many nick names, I will see you when we meet again. <3

P.s. Has anyone experienced any weird occurrences after their bunny’s passed on? Before I left on my trip.. I went to sleep and I swear I felt warmth even though my whole bedroom was cold right next to me on the bed as well as underneath my bed where he used to sleep. My mother also swore she heard what sounded like him running towards my bedroom door as he used to try and do to escape to the other room ( we would close the door fast as we have two dogs out there) which occurred three days after he was cremated.