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The subject of intentional breeding or meat rabbits is prohibited. The answers provided on this board are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. It is your responsibility to assess the information being given and seek professional advice/second opinion from your veterinarian and/or qualified behaviorist.
- This topic has 10sd replies, 10 voices, and was last updated 8 years, 11 months ago by
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THE BEGINNING:
I could write a whole book on my beloved Mathilda the Bun, even though our time together was brief. My husband lives away during the week for work, and I was excited to have a new addition to our family as well as a companion at home while he was gone. I’ve done a lot of Bun research, and I recruited a friend of mine to go on an adventure to pick up my new friend. Mathilda was a gray mini lop about a year old living with a family of three children. When we arrived, the mom looked flustered while her husband just came home from work and three kids running around in circles non-stop. She told me she just wanted the bun to have a good home, because she realized that they are a lot of work and decided to get the kids a dwarf hamster instead. When it came time to leave, the mom said to the kids, “Say Goodbye to the rabbit!” to which one of them replied, “I ALREADY SAID GOODBYE!”
Over the next couple days and weeks we got to know each other. Her cage was too small for her and slowly we went from sharing just the living room, to our whole apartment. The Bun went with me everywhere – I read so much about rabbits that I knew more than my friend who was a vet (she said they only did a short rotation on rabbits). Anytime I gave people directions on how to take care of her, they looked at me like I was crazy. No one understands until they have a bun. We got to know each other and bonded, and we always had our routines. Like before work – I would wake up, go straight to the living room, she would jump out from underneath wherever she was and run in circles in my feet, follow me to the kitchen to wait while I made her salad, and she would follow me back to the living room while she raced/slid down our hallway (like Risky Business).
Months went by and she became my best friend. I took her with anytime I visited my parents or my husband for his weekends on-call. She taught me so much about not just rabbits – but about myself. She taught me patience, and she really brought out the maternal side in me. She brought out the best in me and my husband, and we wanted everyone to know how wonderful she was, so we decided that our Christmas card was going to be just her pictures from her bunny spa day – Red Door Shelter does a bunny spa day 4 times a year where they groom your bunny, clip their nails, and have a themed photoshoot. It’s a great way to get your bunny pampered and meet other people who love rabbits as much as you.
WHEN SHE STARTED TO GET SICK:
One day, I noticed her eye seemed red and a little swollen, so I called the vet. They said as long as shes still pooping and acting OK, it wasn’t an emergency and I should bring her in at the soonest available. My husband took her and he updated me while I was at work. She had a pretty bad case of conjunctivitis (I swear this just popped up overnight, because I was always in her face giving her kisses!) so she was put on a regimen of eye drops, a triple antibiotic eye gel, Meloxicam for the pain, and we had to give her a Penicillin injection every other day for 30 days. She was fine with the drops, but giving her the Meloxicam and injections was a terrible experience for us both – I just felt so terrible giving her these little shots. I got better at it, and at her 1 week follow-up they said her eye looked much better, but they wanted to keep up with the eye drops for another 2 weeks and the Penicillin for the remaining days. They wanted to see her back in 2 weeks.
I noticed that her poops seemed smaller, drier, and little mishaped. I called the vet right away, and they told me this is usually a side effect from the medicine. I started to notice her sleeping in her litter box now and then, and not always coming out to play. But other times she seemed perfectly fine, so I attributed this to the medication as well. Her follow-up appointment was coming up so I thought it was ok. It is now Tuesday, and her appointment is Saturday. I give her her Penicillin injection and hung out on the cough with her afterwards. I unwrapped the bunny burrito and she stayed with me. It’s about 1:30am and I gave her a big kiss goodnight.
OUR LAST DAY:
The next morning, I woke up late – 6:30am. I race to see my Bun and I can’t find her. I grabbed her salad and found her just sitting like a little ball in one of her boxes. She won’t come out, and she won’t eat her salad, not even her cilantro (her favorite). At this point I notice that there is a big pile of cecotrophs (I’ve never seen them before but I knew what they were) and then a big pile of just diarrhea. Then, she jumped on the couch, something she had never done before. I thought this was her telling me she needed help. I scooped her up and slowly put her into her crate and raced to the vet. They took her in and did an x-ray and fecal exam. I waited for the results and they said the x-ray looked fine – she wasn’t bloated, no blockages, etc. But her fecal exam showed Clostridium. They recommended hospitalization and they would do everything to get her better, and the doctor gave me some brief instructions on what her careplan would be when I take her home. They brought her out so that I could say goodbye, and she just looked like she was in bad shape, they said she pooped some more cow piles. They recommended putting her on oxygen and they took her away. Before I left they showed me where they were keeping her – a little cage with a glass window with oxygen flowing in, and my Bun just gave me this look like, “Whats happening? Where are you going?’ I’m near tears, and the team assured me she was in good hands.
Towards the end of my work day, I got a call and I was excited hoping that it would be news that I would get to take my Bun home. To my despair, it was the vet, who told me Bun had stopped breathing and they had to do CPR. They said they kept trying, but every time they stopped CPR, her heart would stop too, and eventually they had to give up. My bun passed away that day.
GOODBYE: My husband is a funeral director, and his work also does pet services. But since he is 3 hours away, I had to wait until Friday (it is Wednesday night at this point) when I had planned to see him for the weekend, to have services for our baby Bun. The night Bun died was the worst I’d ever felt. I cried and cuddled with her little furry body and read her poems about the Rainbow Bridge. I couldn’t handle it, the thought of putting her in the freezer until she could have a proper service. I didn’t eat or sleep the next two days.
The chapel and crematory where they have pet services was one of the nicest facilities I’ve ever seen. We found a cute box for Bun, got her a bouquet of flowers, read her letters, and my husband read her a book he had planned to read to her so that they could bond – “Goodnight Goon” a parody of “Goodnight Moon”. We had one of the most beautiful services a bunny could have. I wanted to make up for the lack of care I gave her. I couldn’t help but feel that it was my fault. If only I took her odd behavior seriously and took her to the vet sooner, then there would have been a chance. I keep telling myself the little poops were a dead giveaway, and that every good bun parent knows this, but I didn’t take her soon enough. I miss her every single day. Not hearing the pidder padder of her feet running down the hardwood floor every morning and night just makes me feel empty. I’ve never felt this way about losing a pet, and I’m afraid I don’t know what to do. My husband tells me that I’m a great bun mom, but I can’t help but feel like I let her get sick. I only had her from April until the beginning of December, but I feel like I lost everything. Reading the kind words and poems about pet loss seems to help a little, but any advice or words of wisdom you can provide are appreciated. <3
Goodbye, my sweet Bun Bun. I love you forever and always.
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