Our proud bunny, Bunner is in a better place today. Over the past couple of months, his appetite started to wane. The usual diet was a B.A. carrot (one guess what B.A. stands for) in the morning with a scoop of Oxbow pellets and a handful of hay. In the evening, he got another scoop of pellets and another handful of hay. On occassion, we'd swap his carrot for an apple or lettuce. But he didn't like normal lettuce. He had to have Romaine lettuce or nothing. Lately though, I've only had to feed him in the morning. Also, he was doing this thing where he had his back to us. He'd stare out the back of his cage at the wall and wouldn't face the door unless he was eating.
Over the weekend, he was struggling to stand sometimes. Had trouble getting up.
On Monday, he was lying down and not getting up. And he completely quit eating. His food just sat there. I'd see him pull himself around with his front paws, but his back paws weren't moving. We figured he had a stroke.
We scheduled an appointment with the vet to take a look at him and probably do the thing that we think has to be done. The average rabbit lives about 4 years. Ours little Bunner, was 15 and change.
When we got him to the vet, the vet said she has seen a lot of rabbits, but there were no standard procedures for one his age. She'd never seen one this old. She suspected that our rabbit had kidney failure and the pain from it is what was preventing him from standing up. Not a stroke. She said, there's not much we could do other than prolonging his life a little bit longer with treatment and probably some sort of dialysis, but we don't put our animal through that, if the diagnosis is chronic and the quality of life is degraded during treatment, it's not good for them. It's not good for anyone. The vet also noticed, with an exam, a mass on his chest.
So we made the decision. We said our goodbyes. We've asked the vet to have him cremated. We even picked out a little urn for him. He'll probably go on the fireplace mantel next to our cat.
Fifteen years. He was fun on Easter. He looked like the Cadbury Bunny too. He'd hop around the yard. He had a favorite corner he'd dug a hole into and he'd go back there and sleep. Occasionally, we get wild bunnies in the yard. You could tell, these scrawny wild rabbits didn't know what to think of our Bunner.
