Last week on Saturday, Tigger wasn’t eating or drinking and appeared to be fading fast. After lots of work this week with syringe feedings of Oxbow Critical Care, water, Simethecone for gas, pain meds and tummy rubs, Tigger has bounced back.
Last night she and Shadow were running all around the house up and down. Such a joy to watch. This is a collage of pictures I took of Tigger this afternoon relaxing on a bunny favorite, the plant tray chaise.
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Today is a hanging in there day. Tigger and Shadow are better. However I am not. I have been in a number of car accidents. Something today has triggered part of my spine into a slipping in and out-of-place mode. So I am up and down a lot and not able to sit still for very long at a time at the computer. Not too much is getting accomplished workwise today.
Tomorrow I will share a couple Etsy treasuries I created this week and pick out a Follow Friday recommendation too.
We pulled the sheet off our cage and now we are napping on it.
Tigger is still on the mend. She is eating a bit more on her own each day and is a great deal more active. She went from a flopped out zero speed to full out run last night. She wanted to take advantage of an opportunity to zoom into the gate opening when we were coming into her area. She took off upstairs for a while. She has started to use the litter box again and has lost the poopy butt problem.
So, why did we go to the vet first thing today? We had to take Shadow in. Shadow has allergies and Georgia is having big time problems with high pollen counts this year. The poor boy regularly sneezes and swallows a lot so we know he has a post nasal drip. He has been in a couple of times this spring to be checked out for the allergies and ear problems. The sneezes are usually dry irritated sneezes. Late yesterday they switched over to very wet sneezes with a wheezy sound on the end. We don’t need to have a bunny go from allergies to bronchitis or pneumonia, so off to vet we went.
The good news is that Shadow’s lungs are clear. The vet says a lot of animals are having issues with pollen allergies here this year. That doesn’t surprise me at all, since the human animals in our house are having a tough time with it too. So we have all the doses for human and animal antihistamines now. We have a prescription for antibiotics in case he becomes a great deal more congested. There aren’t any exotic vets at any of the animal hospitals in our area, so they are helping us to be prepared in case he should get really sick on an evening or weekend.
Everybunny is now going to be getting feedings of Oxbow Critical Care. It will aid Tigger to keep her GI tract moving. The vet suggested some feedings of it for Shadow now too since he is having problems keeping his weight up. He has lost a little more weight each visit the past few months. His appetite is terrible which I can completely understand. The allergies are probably making everything taste awful or he might have an irritated mouth and throat. Poor bunny!
Heh, heh ... I'm gonna eat Shadow's food and drink his water!
This morning Tigger is still getting extra syringe feedings and water along with meds for gas and pain. At first she wasn’t really very interested in much I offered her to eat for a self fed breakfast. I was trying to give her a tummy rub when she decided to show me she had a lot more energy than yesterday and shot out of her cage and took off running around the room.
We have the stairs blocked at the moment so that she can’t go running up or down while she is still weaker than usual and more likely to trip. She and Shadow both started begging to go downstairs to the kitchen. When I said no, Tigger jumped on Shadow’s head and a humping away she went. I decided to let Shadow escape her and let him go down to the kitchen.
When Tigger settled down again, she decided to move in to Shadow’s cage. It is typical Tigger to take over his cage without an invitation and make herself free with his hay, pellets, water and litter box facilities. In this case, I am quite happy to see her do it if it means she is eating and drinking voluntarily.
She ate some pellets and hay, drank some water, and now is alternating between napping in his cage and gnawing his chew ring. Life is so sweet stealing the other bunny’s stuff.
Must get the human cooties off of me!
Early on during this past weekend, it really looked like we might lose our Tigger. She has had issues with going off her food throughout her life. She has been in to the vet at least once a year all of her ten years. There has never been a clearly defined reason or cause found.
What makes it really hard is how quickly it hits. She will be eating everything in sight, running around and playing with no signs of feeling ill at all. Then she will go in for the night or lay down for an afternoon nap and it is like a switch has been thrown.
The next morning or after her nap, Tigger doesn’t want to eat, drink or move. It has seemed like a gassy tummy issue on many occasions. Per the vets instructions, we would give her Simethecone, extra water, tummy rubs, get her to move around and switch to hay only. The problem would usually clear up in a few hours or overnight and she would be back to normal. We have watched for any common denominator in foods or activities, but there seems to be no identifiable pattern.
This past year, the problem has been more severe and she gets quite ill and takes days or weeks to return to normal. She has seen the vet a lot. She has been checked out head to toe, had tests, and been put under anesthesia twice for tooth exams and had a couple filed down to be sure they weren’t the cause. The anesthesia makes me so nervous since that is riskier at her age.
This weekend she took her afternoon nap and when it came time to wake up and run around again, she seemed completely unresponsive to everything around her. Poor Shadow was licking her from head to tail without any reaction on her part. Then he pawed at her trying to get her to respond to him. She opened her eyes wider, but that was it. We separated them and went to work giving the pain meds and Simethecone in the vet prescribed doses and then syringe feedings of water and Oxbow Critical Care. In between we would offer Tigger parsley, a favorite, and a variety of hays. She seems to eat when we offer things to her and hand feed her. We have also been giving her tummy rubs.
Late yesterday, she started to show some temper over being medicated, fed and cleaned up. Our Tigger is coming back again, at least for now. We are winning battles to keep her with us, but realize that at ten years old, losing the war is closer than we would like it to be.
I'm still listening
I wrote a couple posts about how very high energy our Shadow is. Although she was quite high energy herself when younger, Tigger has always had a side of her personality that has a still watching quality, call it her inner kitty. She will hen up and seem distant, remote and untouchable. Tigger is also very sensitive, sometimes easily freaked out. At those times, she doesn’t want anyone to come close or touch her.
This weekend with her illness, it has been very difficult because we have had to handle her way more than she is comfortable with. Fortunately, we discovered something by accident years ago that is also helping make her to feel more comfortable with us again in between needing to be medicated or cleaned up. Tigger likes to be stroked with words.
Tigger can have the same purring reaction to words that many animals have while being hand petted. Since she is so sensitive and easily panics, while she was quite young, we started talking to her from a safe distance of at least a few feet so that she knew we could not pick her up. Depending on the circumstances, we would tell her she was all right, things were okay, that she was a beautiful girl, a good bunny, a good Tigger. We started to notice that Tigger would begin to relax and noticeably tooth purr, just the same as if we were physically touching her and stroking her. She loves to be told she is a good bunny. Soft tones of voice, quiet words and those words “good bunny” help her find a mellow safe and happy place.
We would like nothing more than to pick her up, hug her and stroke her, because that is what helps humans to feel secure and loved. Tigger wants a lot of sweet talking instead. Physical touching is prefered by invitation only. She will hop up to where we are sitting and peek over the edge of the seat and then lay down on the floor. That is one cue that an invitation to hands on petting is being extended. Another is if we are on the floor and she hops up next to us and flops down. The last invitation is when she will look at us from a distance and as we approach, she will put her head flat down on the floor. She presents herself by assuming the “I am ready for grooming” position. It is the same position she uses to signal to Shadow that she wants his attention. We are being accepted as surrogate bunnies.
This weekend, we are helping her feel more comfortable and safe again with us by talking to her a lot and telling her that she is a very good bunny. She has shown us she really appreciates our understanding of her needs. Yesterday, she hopped beside Blaine and flopped down asking to be stroked. Today as I was talking to her, she weakly hopped up to where she could see me clearly and put her head down presenting it to be petted. We enjoyed some very sweet time together.
Throughout her life, talking to her and letting her issue the invitations for physical petting has rewarded us with lots of opportunities. We have really gained her trust and even while she is quite ill now, that trust continues and is making it easier for us to care for her and keep her comfortable.
I like to wear my food
Yesterday I defined B.A.D.D (aka BADD) as Bunny Attention Deficit Disorder. I think it is a cute, but really easy way to communicate an accurate description of Mr. Shadow.
Blaine has often complained that blog posts make Shadow sound like a bad rabbit. He isn’t at all. Shadow has the sweetest, friendliest temperament. There is just so much playfulness and lightheartedness in what he does and how he acts. However as a baby and young rabbit, he was absolute full-out non stop energy nearly all the time. He was into everything imaginable. Tigger was too, but at five years old, she started into a more mature slower phase. Shadow has slowed a bit, but at ten years old, he has the energy level that many adult rabbits start out with.
Shadow isn’t a bad rabbit, he is a BADD rabbit. I really believe that just as many humans are hyperactive and easily distracted, so is our Shadow. He is a true joy to have around, but only because we have become knowledgable about how to meet the needs and challenges of a very high energy easily distracted animal.
Whether human or animal, high energy / high activity beings require more time from those caring for them. We had to learn how to protect Shadow and also Tigger when she was younger from harming themselves with their over the top can do rabbit attitudes. We also needed to keep up with needs for lots of fun things for them to do. I am sure a lot of high energy / high activity rabbits probably get abandoned by people who weren’t prepared to deal with all that bunergy. It does at times seem like bouncing off the walls activity and that somebody or somebunny needs a padded room.
Blaine and I would both say the reward in the relationship we have with wonderful active rabbit companions is worth the time it took to understand their unique personalities and needs.
Here Shadow is on top of a carpet covered pet carrier and stretching up even further to pull down some other bunnies to chew on
We came up with the acronym B.A.D.D. (aka BADD) for Bunny Attention Deficit Disorder. Shadow can be a very destructive bunny when he gets his little rabbit mind focused on chewing something up. He also has the attention span of a gnat if something else catches his eye. We kept saying he had ADD, then bunny ADD and eventually realized BADD really covered it quite nicely.
The ADD nature of some rabbits can be used to your advantage in bunnyproofing by realizing that relocation of a BADD rabbit can short-circuit and reroute destructive activities to acceptable ones. I quite regularly pick Shadow up and relocate him to an entirely different part of the house and give him something acceptable to chew up or play with.
That does put more effort on me on some days when he seems to be extremely focused on a destructive activity and keeps stubbornly coming back to it. I may have to go pick him up and relocate him several times. Shadow is a bright boy though and doesn’t want to keep being picked up. He will get the idea after a couple times and then when he sees me coming to check on him, he will relocate himself.
They key to making this work is having acceptable things to chew available in different locations around your home. That way you can relocate a rabbit from one area to another and quickly interest them in something else they are supposed to chew or play with. Shadow loves cardboard. So we have stashes of cardboard tubes from paper towels and cardboard tunnels or boxes in different locations as well as grass mats and willow chews in various locations.
Think of your house in terms of different zones, perhaps by room or floor. Place good bunny things to chew or play with in each zone so that you can try relocation and refocusing as a tactic for a misbehaving rabbit.
Once again Shadow’s radar ability astonishes. I don’t know how he does it, whether it is sensing or hearing or a combination of both. He is so fine tuned to knowing where and when something is happening that needs his rabbit investigation:
Tigger has the same radar ability, but has less interests than Shadow does. If you turn on the faucet in the kitchen or start to open a bag of greens, Tigger will be there, dancing on the edge of the dining room rug. Sometimes she comes skating across the linoleum on the kitchen floor in her excitement to get to new food.
Both have one interest in common, treats! Rattle anything that sounds like a container with treats and they are not only there, but dancing up and down on their back two legs like crazy rabbits. Fresh bananas are a special treat and we need to sneak them out to the patio, garage or other areas if we want to eat them in peace. I thought it was the smell that they were fine tuned to, until I realized that Shadow was repeatedly showing up before I even had the skin off the banana, usually when I first snapped it. The boy recognizes the sound of a banana about to be opened!
It continues to amaze me just how much rabbits are able to recognize if you give them the chance to interact and roam around freely.
Did I do that?
Yesterday I wrote about our Great Wall of Cardboard which got me thinking a lot about cardboard and just how much the bunnies love cardboard. Hands down, the things that have kept our bunnies the most occupied over the years were made of cardboard or paper.
If you want to keep a bunny occupied, they are a lot like small children, much more interested in the box than what came in the box. Remember that before you go investing in expensive bunny toys that you think are cute but the bunnies ignore. When you use up the paper towels, save the rolls for the rabbits. When that new phone book comes, give the old one to the rabbits. If you have an office paper shredder, you might want to take those old newspapers and shred them up. Then fill a big cardboard box with them to let the bunnies dig it out or tunnel through it.
If you want to invest in purchased bunny toys, a great place to start is cardboard tunnels. You can get them online or at pet stores. Or you can just go to the home improvement store and get the cardboard rounds that are used for pouring and molding concrete.
Online stores that cater to rabbits are carrying boxes, cottages and tunnels made out of cardboard that have been designed with how rabbits play in mind. Since I know how much our rabbits love cardboard, I would see those as a good investment in something they would spend their time playing with. One key thing in finding things rabbits like to play with is that it reduces the amount of time they might be playing with (chewing on) things you would like to keep bunny free.
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Well, I had some technical issues today getting the scanner to play nice with me over these photos. Going forward I am trying to find a better way to get the old 35mm film shots of Tigger and Shadow converted to digital.
When we first got Tigger and Shadow, we were living in an apartment. Right off the bat, we realized that their fearsome tendency to chew everything they could was going to put our pet and regular security deposit in huge jeopardy if we didn’t do something major to keep bunny teeth away from baseboards, doors and plaster walls.
So we ended up creating the Great Wall of Cardboard. You can see it running around the rooms in these pictures. We used either pieces of cardboard or cardboard mailing envelopes and hooked them together with ACCO binder clips at the top and bottom or large 3″ metal paper clips. We liked the cardboard mailing envelopes because they were not only a uniform size, but there were two thicknesses for the rabbits to have to chew through before they could get to baseboards, doors or plaster.
The clips holding the cardboard together allowed it to be taken down and put up easily if we wanted to completely disassemble it for company coming. It was also easy to replace pieces of the cardboard wall as they became too chewed. The wall was a foot tall, so we could easily open a door and step over it into another room. Unless a bunny was right there and ready to leap, it stopped them from zooming through.
The Great Wall of Cardboard served us well and when we moved out, we did get our security deposit back.