Extra: Rabbits Always Ready to Surprise

After a combined 36 years in the lives of four rabbits, I am always learning there is much more to learn about bunnies. Leo appears to be susceptible to hiccups. I did not know that rabbits could have hiccups. I did some online research after his most recent attack and found a video of a rabbit experiencing hiccups and saw reports by many others of their rabbits experiencing hiccups:

Link to video if it isn’t working properly here: http://youtu.be/RSIkipInd28

I double checked with our vet today about when or if to be concerned. They said they would be want to see him if it starts happening everyday or if Leo seems distressed in some way or having breathing issues. So far it has occurred just twice with several weeks in between. Leo does not appear to be at all distressed, in fact he was laying down napping both times when he would just start making a funny noise and bouncing movement of his head. After no more than about a minute, it was gone again. It looked and sounded like hiccups, but took me completely by surprise because I had not seen or heard of hiccups before in a rabbit.

The vets staff recommended that if this happens again, we should try to capture it on video for the vet to take a look. That is a great suggestion for anyone with rabbits and weird symptoms since so often bringing them to the vet brings on such a fear response that even the sickest rabbit can often look quite healthy and normal when their systems kick into the fight or flight response of adrenaline flooding their systems. So Leo is giving us an extra added incentive to figure out how to have the video camera ready to catch him in action whatever that may be …

Tomorrow, the story of Shadow and parsley …

Shadow Becomes Very Ill – The Diagnosis and Recovery

Watch out for one ear up one ear down

Watch for ear positions that regularly stay like this!

This is part two of the story of Shadow’s early illness that I wrote about on Thursday. After nursing Shadow through a rough Sunday, we loaded him up first thing Monday morning to head off to meet the new vet who had so kindly returned our call Sunday afternoon to provide assistance by phone even though we weren’t current patients.

One of the first questions the vet had asked us on the phone the day before about Shadow was whether he was an outdoor or indoor pet rabbit. She told us later on in our first visit that was a key question for her in deciding what / how much help to offer us. Her experience was that owners who kept their rabbits outdoors usually did not want to pay for or follow through with treatment if the rabbits became ill, while owners who kept their rabbits indoors were more likely to accept and follow her treatment suggestions.

When the vet started to look Shadow over, she noticed something right away that we had missed. He was holding his ears funny, one was partially up with the other flat down against his head. I was used to the “rabbit ears” of a rabbit sometimes having one ear up and one down as they rested, but at the same time sometimes tuned in to things around them. I hadn’t really paid any attention to watching Shadow’s ear positions on a regular basis as a guide signalling that something more sinister might be going on. Even before taking a look inside his ears, the vet believed we were dealing with an ear infection.

Looking inside Shadow’s ears, the vet saw that both eardrums were extremely red and one was bulging. It was clear he had an inner ear infection. She didn’t stop there though and gave him a thorough head to toe exam making sure that seemed to be the only problem point on a physical exam. Not finding anything else that seemed wrong, she wanted to put him under anesthesia to poke a hole in the bulging eardrum allowing it to drain and to get an x-ray of Shadow’s head to try to determine if the infection was confined to his ears or perhaps had spread beyond the ears into the brain which would be much more serious. Knowing that anesthesia can be tricky for rabbits and that Shadow was very weak, we agreed knowing that he might not wake up. We recognized he needed a good diagnosis for the best treatment and hopefully a recovery.

Fortunately all was good news with the anesthesia and x-ray. There didn’t appear to be any spread of infection beyond the ears and the vet was also able to relieve the pressure on the bulging eardrum. When the vet learned I had trained and worked as a pediatric nurse in the past, she suggested that we start out his treatment with daily antibiotic injections at home to give him the strongest early treatment possible. I was terrified. It had been years since I had worked as a nurse and given any shots. The smallest patients I had given shots to were twice Shadow’s size and baby human anatomy isn’t disguised in layers of thick fur. I did want to give him the best chance, so the vet showed us how Blaine needed to hold Shadow and where I needed to give the shot. We went home with a plan for daily shots for a week with a follow-up visit.

Initially, Shadow was still very weak, so the first two days of giving the shots weren’t too hard. Then he started to feel a little better and even with Blaine holding him flat on the table, Shadow was able to flex his muscles hard enough to bend the needle when I gave him the shot. I called the vet and said I thought we were risking having a needle break in him if we continued on with the shots. So she had us switch to oral doses for the remainder of the week. Shadow continued to gain strength and by the end of the week seemed normal again and his checkup went well. So far so good, but not for long. Within a week, his bad balance was back and he was staggering around and weaving looking like a drunk bunny.

We headed back to the vet for Plan B. It was clear that the first antibiotic had not fully knocked out the infection. So the vet switched to another and said the plan this time would be to keep Shadow on antibiotics for two weeks past the time symptoms disappeared. That turned out to be a very long time. It took two months of watching Shadow staggering around looking drunk. We wondered all the time whether we were doing the right thing, whether this was as good as he would ever be again, or whether he would develop resistance to the antibiotic or a stronger infection from being on the antibiotics so long.

It was hard to watch Shadow struggle to stay balanced. He had been such an active athletic rabbit. Watching his difficulty and not knowing if that struggle would now perhaps be permanent for the remainder of his life was tough. Then at the two months into the second set of antibiotics, the symptoms cleared up and Shadow was able to stand and move without any loss of balance or staggering in his movements. We began the plan to keep him on the antibiotics for another two weeks to try to be more certain that the infection had been fully cleared this time.

It was looking really good for Shadow to come off the antibiotics and be fully returned to normal and then we noticed that Tigger was holding her ears funny like Shadow had been when he was first diagnosed. It was off to the vet with both rabbits. Sure enough, just as Shadow was ready to come off antibiotics, Tigger had developed an inner ear infection. We had kept Shadow and Tigger in separate side by side cages to allow them to see each other, but had kept separate run times. Shadow’s illness had rendered him really irritable and the one and only time we had tried to allow them to play together, he had growled at Tigger and chased her away.

So now the vet proposed Plan C. This was the really hard one. The vet wanted Tigger and Shadow to be housed in completely separate areas of the house with no contact until Tigger was clear of infection. She wanted Shadow to stay in the area he was used to since he was the weakest and that area had the most run area to allow him the best exercise ability to try to fully regain his strength. Shadow would come off the antibiotics as planned and Tigger would be on them until her infection cleared. The vet told us if we didn’t do this, it was likely we would be facing an endless round of the rabbits passing the infection back and forth. Even doing this, repeat ear infections were still a possibility since rabbits like some humans can have a genetic tendency to that type of infection.

We have a tri-level home. Shadow got the second level living room, while Tigger got the office and hallway on the third floor. Over the next month, Shadow regained his strength and once again became the strong athletic rabbit he had been in the past. Tigger was miserable and it was clear it wasn’t just the infection. She was in a completely unfamiliar place and all alone. When her infection cleared after a month, we moved both rabbits back to side by side cages in the living room with separate run times. Working on bonding them again would be for a future time once we were more sure of their health.

We were very fortunate and Shadow never had an ear infection again. Tigger did have some repeat ear infections, but only about once a year for a few years which cleared up easily with antibiotics. Fortunately for us, none of the worst case scenarios ever came to be. The one thing we learned was to really pay attention to a rabbit’s ear positions. They do move their ears around a lot, but the key to spotting a problem early is if they are keeping their ears partially or fully back much longer than their normal or pawing or scratching at their ears much more than normal. The illness of Shadow and then Tigger taught us just how subtle the clues can be between normal behavior and the beginning of a serious illness. So, the best thing to maintaining good rabbit health is human caregivers who really know what their normal behavior is to recognize early when things seem off. We missed it early on because we weren’t aware to look for this problem and we had just moved into our house and were still busy getting things settled and not as observant as at other times.

I’ll write more in September about all the bonding woes we had with Tigger and Shadow, partly due to this illness.  Next week more Shadow and probably Leo stories …

Shadow Becomes Very Ill

Watch out for one ear up one ear down

The ears here hold a clue, more about that tomorrow ...

When Shadow was just a few months over a year old, we woke up one Saturday morning and realized right away that something was very wrong. He didn’t want his morning treat or to come out of his cage. We made arrangements to get him to the vet right away and felt fortunate that the vet had Saturday morning hours.  Unfortunately,  most likely since the vet was only open half a day on Saturday and we were describing what seemed like  stomach problems, the vet examined him for that and prescribed treatment for stasis.

We took Shadow home and began the recommended diet and treatments.  On Sunday morning, Shadow came out of his cage right away and at first we thought that was a good sign.  Then he bent down to eat out of a bowl and fell over on the floor and was rolling around.  It was clear that something was very wrong with his balance.  We realized then the vet had not done a full head to toe check of him the day before and the proper diagnosis needed had been missed.

We got on the phone calling every vet we could find and contacting rabbit people we knew via phone and email trying to find some assistance since we weren’t sure what was wrong or how to help Shadow.  The emergency animal clinics that were open had no exotic vets on staff or call.  The exotic vets had no Sunday hours, except for one that was more than an hour away.  The air conditioning on the car had just gone on the fritz and we hadn’t had a chance to even schedule an appointment for that yet.  We knew we could not take Shadow such a long distance in the Georgia heat with no air conditioning in the car.  We would trade one emergency for another if we tried.  We only got the answering machine for one exotic vet nearby who indicated she had emergency call back, but only for current patients.  We had nothing to lose and Blaine left her a message anyway.

The exotic vet we left a message for did call back and we were so appreciative.  She said normally she would not call non patients back, but there was something about what Blaine had said that made her decide to make an exception.  We described the problem with Shadow’s appetite and activity being off the previous day and now his falling over and rolling around when he bent his head to eat.  We were asked a lot of questions and told that it sounded like either a problem with an ear infection or a neurological problem with seizure like activity.  The vet thought it was more likely an ear problem from what we described and that the falling over was due to dizziness.  She suggested we put him back in his cage and make that as safe a space as possible since he was experiencing balance problems.  She wanted us to keep trying to get him to eat and drink and then bring him in first thing the next morning on Monday to be seen as a new patient.

Tigger and Shadow were bonded at that time and sharing a cage that was two cages linked together.  The vet suggested we separate them so that we could better monitor Shadow and so that Shadow would not be tripped by Tigger or accidentally hurt her by falling on her.  We separated the cages into two.  Then we removed things from the floor of what would be Shadow’s cage, toys and such that were loose and that could trip him or that he could fall on.  Then we put him in his new cage for one.  When he tried to eat out of his bowl, he fell over in the cage again and was rolling around trying to get back on his feet.  Shadow was wild-eyed terrified.  When he was able to get back up, he hopped to the back of the cage into the litter pan and laid down propped up against the side.  Thinking about the problem likely being dizziness, we got some freshly washed greens which would give him both food and some water and held them out to him right where he was laying so he did not have to move his head.  He was so eager to eat those, it was clear he was hungry and thirsty.

We thought some more about the problem and realized it was probably a good idea to keep him in his litter box as much as possible.  It was a safe space if he fell and the sides allowed him to prop himself up and rest his head to keep it steady.  The litter box fit the cage side to side in the back.  We realized we had three cage walls to work with surrounding him.  We moved his hay rack, water bottle and food bowl so each was on one of the walls around his pan.  We positioned each so that they were right on a level even with his head so that he did not have to move his head up or down to eat or drink.  That was a success and Shadow began eating and drinking again.  We continued throughout the rest of day and evening to also hand feed him some greens.

By evening he was still a very sick rabbit.  It seemed he was just a tiny bit stronger since he was able to eat and drink again now that we had things so that he didn’t have to move his head and risk losing his balance.  He continued resting comfortably in his litter box keeping himself propped up.  We got his carrier ready to take him in to the new vet first thing the next morning.

Tomorrow, the diagnosis and the long road to recovery …

Tigger Visits The Vet

Tigger on phone book

So Tigger, are you looking for your vet?

Since I hadn’t planned on bringing a bunny home, I wasn’t sure how easy it would be to find a good vet.  It actually turned out that a rabbit savvy vet was close to where we lived.  I set up an appointment.  Then I had to find another larger pet store to get a proper carrier for Tigger to travel in.  The original pet store had not had one and we had to bring her home in a cardboard pet box which was no way for a bunny to travel, dark and scary and easy to chew through if a rabbit got motivated enough.

I picked out a small kitty carrier where the top could be separated from the bottom allowing for easier storage and cleaning.  The top and front had metal grille doors allowing for putting Tigger in through either opening and checking on her from the top to help prevent really easy escapes out an opened front door.

After making the appointment, we put the carrier in Tigger’s running space in the kitchen to get her used to it, so that it wasn’t completely unfamiliar when she had to go into it for the trip.  Right away, as little as she was, she hopped up on top of it.  That was an early sign of things to come with Tigger.  First she sat up and looked at something and then she jumped on top of it.

Tigger on carrierOn the day of the appointment, I put Tigger into the carrier and put it on the passenger seat next to me with the door facing me so that we could see each other on the trip.  I used the seatbelt and shoulder harness to strap in the carrier to keep it in place should any sudden stops be needed which unfortunately occur a lot in busy metro Atlanta traffic.  I drapped a small towel over the carrier top so that the sun wouldn’t shine in her eyes, but made sure the side vents were clear for enough air circulation.  Then we were off.

There wasn’t a whole lot of Tigger for the vet to examine.  I don’t remember her exact weight, but it was somewhere between 2 1/2 and 3 pounds.  She was just a handful of bunny.  The vet checked her over giving his opinion that it did indeed look like we had a little girl.  The best news was that she was an otherwise healthy bunny who was malnourished due to a bad diet.  He gave me a brochure for the Oxbow Company and suggested that I order some Alfalfa hay and pellets to fatten up our baby.  Then we would add greens in upcoming months and switch to Timothy hay and pellets later on when she was full-grown.  We discussed spaying her in about four months when she would be about six months old.

Tigger and I both left happy, she to be leaving the poking and prodding behind and I with fears of larger health problems relieved.  I ordered her Alfalfa hay and pellets right away.  When they arrived a few days later and I opened the package, it was like receiving a box full of meadow.  The smell was wonderful.  If I was a rabbit, I would have been all over that food.  So, great new hay and pellets on board, bunny is about to be fattened up shortly.

That is when we started to get the drift that Tigger had a very stubborn little bunny mind and did not want to change from what she was used to which was the awful guinea pig pellets.  I followed suggestions from rabbit sources online to mix the old pellets with the new.  Tigger would pick out all the bad stuff and leave her good rabbit pellets behind.  It took weeks and we were down to the very last spoonful of the guinea pig pellets before she decided that she liked her new Alfalfa pellets and switched over to eating them.  Fortunately while she was arguing the pellets, she was liking the new Alfalfa hay.  Slowly our bunny baby started losing some of her very bony feel.

Coming next, there’s a Tigger in the kitchen!

Follow Friday – Quality of Life Scale

Veterinary Practice News Quality of Life ScaleI wish that no one ever had to make the hard decision that it is time to let a beloved pet go.  However, the Quality of Life Scale can help in making a compassionate assessment whether to consider / continue pawspice care (pet hospice).  We had Tigger and Shadow in pawspice for a number of months before everything became too much for them.

PDF version of the Quality of Life Scale.

Next week I plan to begin to look back at the wonderful lives of our rabbits and tell their stories starting with Tigger.

Good Evening Rabbits

Shadow and TiggerI have been quiet for a few months, juggling a lot.  Late September and October brought the worst fall allergy season in years.  I hit bottom on my energy level and Tigger and Shadow were experiencing some on again off again illnesses.  As the allergy season moved to its end, I bounced back, to realize that the rabbits were not rebounding from illness as they had been.  There have been a number of vet visits, a lot of prescriptions and a lot of bunny care.

At the beginning of this year, the vet confirmed what I had already recognized.  My funny furry little friends are closing in on the end of their lives.  They have finally reached a place where they are showing their age.  We have entered the realm of rabbit assisted living / hospice care.  That isn’t due to any specific serious illness right now, but things that are now chronic and reoccurring.  It is also based on the fact that some diagnostic tests and treatments are no longer safe given their senior age.  Tigger is due to turn eleven at the end of this month and Shadow at the end of April.  So everything now is focused on keeping them as comfortable, active and pain-free as they can be.  We have standing medications on hand and on file with the vet to be prepared to treat some of the chronic pain and illnesses that have become a regular part of their life and ours.  

It was so sad early on coming to grips with the realization they have entered this end stage.  I now accept it is a joyful time.  They are still with us and bring us so many smiles and laughter.  Tigger and Shadow run a senior version of the Bunny 500 on good days.  They binky and come running to us and still do adorable bunny dances for treats.  Everything they do is just slower and with more care.  They are actually more snuggly with us right now than they have been at any other point in their lives.  Afternoons and evenings, we will see them flopped together, leaning in to each other, propping each other up. 

So we will take things as they come.  I plan to blog a few times a week about the bunnies and what we are up to with the Rabbittude website and shops.