Home Improvements

I'm sitting in bed, Walter by my side, sitting on his pedestal. This weekend was a bit of a change for him. I did some very late and overdue 'spring' cleaning. Boxes everywhere, things that were stored away were pulled out into various piles of junk around the house, with Walter safely beneath the covers of the bed. He hasn't really started to act like 'himself' until last night, when we were mostly done everything. So of course to make up for his weekend 'away', he had to be his great, very obedient self last night. It started with him jumping on top of the cupboards once again, nothing new or all that surprising actually, he did, however, decided to try something new last night.
His litter box is currently in our bathroom, conveniently located just under the roll or toilet paper, next the the wall. I heard a different noise than usual coming from the bathroom and went to investigate....ugh. Have you ever seen your cat or dog, wipe their paws after the finish making a deposit? Yeah, Walter does that too, sometimes he even actually covers his mess in the box, but he also wipes his paws on the wall, on the floor outside the box and on the shower curtain. We he must have gotten a bit more vigorous than usual with the wall.....there is a strip of drywall missing from the bottom of the toilet paper roll right down to the top of the litter box. Yup, thanks Walter. It wouldn't be such a big issue, however, we live in a rented apartment. So, in the mean time, before he can do any more damage, I had a great idea. We actually have a hanging corrugated cardboard scratching post (it hangs off door knobs etc.) that Walter has never really ever used. I had an extra picture hook hanging around and hung it right over top of the peeled paint on the wall. It seems to have worked thus far, but we can only hope.....

Vaccine Day!

So today was Walter's appointment for his annual exam and vaccines, though we were a bit overdue (by like 4 months!). I packed him up in his swanky new carrier and hauled him off to work. His exam went well.....though with a few 'bumps' in the road you could say! He has gained close to 3 pounds since we adopted him over a year ago...not good! It doesn't help that his 'holistic' food is almost 500 calories per cup either, though it has worked a wonder on his vomiting episodes. Other than that, there is a suspect tooth with a possible resorptive lesion on it, so I guess I'll have to keep an eye on that. Heart sounds good, no murmur, which is great as we've been keeping an eye on his heart due to an ultrasound he had last year. Because the ultrasonographer was coming into the clinic anyways to do an ultrasound on another patient, we thought we would take this opportunity and have his heart rechecked today.
Needless to say, Walter wasn't very cooperative (very squirmy) last time, so I thought I'd be proactive and sedate him slightly prior to this ultrasound. I gave him a nice IV injection of a narcotic mixed with a benzodiazepine (like valium). Well....that didn't work too well, though he could hardly sit without falling over, he was even more squirmy. Up comes IV injection #2 (more narcotic and this time a sedative). Well, it wasn't perfect, but it got the job done.
The ultrasound showed no heart abnormalities (murmur, thickening etc), so I am just happy with that.
It has been about 6 hours since I sedated him and he is still wobbling around the house looking for food (benzo's do that!) with his eyes as big as pie plates!

Clean bill of health, now just to work on the weight thing.....wish me good luck.

Lil'Lucy

Well, unfortunately, this post is not going to be about Walter today, however, it is going to be about Walter's little lop-earred rabbit girlfriend, Lucy.
We adopted Lucy almost three years ago as a teeny-tiny 6 week old bunny. We originally adopted her as a companion for our other lop, Loki. After the first introduction, Loki bit the tip of her ear off (and we never found it and now think that Loki is the first ever omniverous rabbit). Since then, they have become much better friends, however, never completely becoming a bonded pair.
Since we adopted Walter, him and Lucy have become quite the pair. The would lay together on the floor (and even in the cage sometimes), play and chase one another, and even on certain occasions, groom one another.
Lucy is a very sweet rabbit, never had any issues with her, never territorial, would love to snuggle and was just such a well-mannered and sweet rabbit. Loki, on the otherhand, is your typical male rabbit, generally territorial, though very smart and cuddly when he want to be. Actually, they are both very smart, I clicker trained both of them!

Well, unfortunately, we noticed something was up with Lucy on monday night. We had went grocery shopping, and when we came home, I offered the rabbits some fresh cilantro. Lucy has always loved her fresh veggies and hay, and she didn't eat any of it. I opened her cage to let her have some fun time, and she didn't want to move too much. Later that night, I thought I might as well start medicating her (to make a long story short, rabbits can easily go into gastric stasis, essentially colic. They become painful and anorexic, and without early intervention, it can turn out ugly, however, it is generally always secondary to another problem....diet, infection, stress, etc.). So we gave her some sub-q fluids, and an anti-inflammatory pain reliever. The next morning, I brought her to work, started force feeding her, more fluids, more pain meds etc. That night we repeated everything and tried to get her to move as much as possible. By the next morning (tuesday morning), she couldn't hold her head up. I brought her in, and took x-rays. The rads showed a HUGE amount of gas throughout her abdomen, she was pale and cold to the touch. I knew this wasn't going to turn out well. We tried to stablize her...I actually got an IV catheter in (not the easiest thing to do in a rabbit, especially when it's your own animal who needs it so desperately). She was so painful and the only thing we could to to relieve the gas in her abdomen was to essentially trocharize her (insert a needle into her stomach and relieve the pressure). Shortly after that, she started to fight. I've seen all this before, in our last rabbit, Roxy. It's almost like they know that the end is near and they physically fight it.

15 minutes later, she passed away. It went so quickly, thankfully.

We have no idea what made her get so sick so quickly. But now, she's out of pain, and across the Bridge. We gave her an amazing life for 3 years, she was a very spoiled bunny, and I am thankful we were able to spend that time with her.
I know some people may think, "it's only a rabbit", but ask any one in my family or any one of my friends, I love my rabbits as much as I love Walter. They are part of our family, and we love them dearly.

When I think of the animals that we lost, I do find solstice in knowing that they are in heaven....healthy and happy. I also think of my Grandmother, who passed away in September, she was an animal lover (I think that's where I got it from), and I know that she is caring for them and loving them as I did up in heaven,