Beatrix in the Clear; Camille in the Tank & Babies!

When Beatrix was spayed, the vet not only found advanced uterine cancer but also widespread mammarian cancer which appeared to have metastisized to the omentum or abdominal wall. So a few weeks after the cancer was presumably all removed, she was radiographed (x-rayed) to look for signs of metastasis of the uterine cancer to the lungs or mammarian cancer to the liver or omentum, for any signs of tumors or spots at all.

So far, Beatrix is in the clear! $500 later that is, but that is what this Sanctuary is for. Why should Beatrix just be immediately euthanized upon arrival in the shelter when there is someone willing to help her out? She will need to be radiographed (full body) in another 6 months and then in 12 months to look again for signs of metastasis. After 12 months of no signs on the radiographs and no symptoms, she should be considered clear of cancer! Yay for Beatrix! Let's keep our fingers crossed.

Camille Battles Severe Upper Respiratory Infection

Bright Eyes foster rabbit Camille had been adopted and returned twice. The first time she was adopted, her bonding to Bart fell apart. She and Bart fought badly and she was getting stressed and about to get sick. So she came back to the Sanctuary. The second time she was adopted, the adopters brought their bunny to meet her and their bunny was sneezing a dry sneeze which they claimed was just allergies. Well, after being informed Camille would not be bonded to that rabbit until he'd seen a qualified vet, the rabbit cultured positive for enterobacter; the new black plague of rabbits.

But they put him on meds and I was assured by the vet he was no longer contagious so I bonded them. The bonding was a 'non-bonding,' they were two very compatible rabbits. But upon going home, the bonding fell apart. Camille began attacking the other rabbit as well as her new people. The other rabbit became more sick and got head tilt. Camille was probably rejecting him because he was ill. Camille came back and seemed ok but had a different kind of snort. Over time this became more pronounced and then about 6 weeks ago, she was in full blown respiratory distress.

She spent five days in the hospital last week and came back to the Sanctuary on Saturday with an armory of drugs. She also requires one drug to be administered via nebulization. You can see her in the photo receiving this drug while sitting in a nebulization chamber. Her prognosis is guarded. At first she had to fight for every breath but now she is a great more comfortable. She has a long haul to go before her health is restore. Please think good thoughts about Camille.

And Bright Eyes Sanctuary will be requiring health certificates for all rabbits who wish to be introduced to one of our fosters. I think this is something all rabbit rescues should consider.

Babies!

I volunteer about 3 days a week at Frederick County Animal Control in Frederick, MD where we had a group of 7 rabbits come in just before Easter. I had just gotten the shelter emptied of rabbits and 7 more came in on March 19!

I handle the rabbit adoptions there (this is in addition to Bright Eyes adoptions and all the Bright Eyes Sanctuary responsiblities), getting the rabbits spayed and neutered, photographing them, writing their biographies, posting them on Petfinder and advertising them as many places as possible. I'm also building a network of fosterers for dumping season when we'll be overflowing with discarded bunnies. And of course, I go in and socialize the bunnies, groom them, hug and kiss them and tell them everything's going to be ok.

Unfortunately, I was also in the hospital with an acute MS attack right before this group of 7 came in. Confusion at the shelter led to one boy being caged with 3 girls who all became pregnant, unbeknownst to anyone at the time.

I later pulled one of the girls, Willow, a pretty black agouti, for temperament reasons. At first, she seemed fine with the shelter stress which rabbits there suffer from being housed in the puppy and small dog room (think yipping puppies and baying Beagles in the same room with their natural prey, poor bunnies). So I requested she go into rescue with me for rehabilitation.

Once here at the Sanctuary, she blossomed and was happy and relaxed. However, I was still too sick from my MS attack to deal with getting her promptly spayed. It took me a good 6 weeks to fully recover from my MS attack (the first in 7 years) but the rabbit business never let up for a minute. I was conducting adoption interviews from my hospital bed!

Then upon one of my initial returns to the shelter after getting out of the hospital, I learned one of the females, Twinkle, had given birth to a litter. Some were stillborn and the rest she suffocated. This is a natural reaction for a rabbit mother who believes her life is in danger.

In a panic, I checked the other girl from the group, Prairie, and she was obviously pregnant and about to pop! So I brought her here to the Sanctuary to have her babies in safety. She gave birth to her litter here on April 20 and Willow gave birth to her litter on April 22. Prairie (see photo) had six babies but the two largest were still born. Willow had 6 babies and they were all fine. All the babies are doing well and already causing trouble! I'll be posting more about them in the coming days and chronicling their growth. I'll also post their photos to Photobucket so you can watch their progress.

Both Willow and Prairie are immature mothers, only six months old. The father of the litter, shelter boy Bristol, is going in to the vet tomorrow to have abcessess removed from his scrotal sacs which got infected as a result of a poorly done neuter. He'll be ok though, we hope. He hasn't seen his babies yet. He might not. Well maybe just a glimpse. He has 10 children! Prairie and Willow are doing an excellent job caring for their young. They had little help from me, I had to supplement feed one time as they watched and then after that, they did a good job.

Taking care of these babies is both fun and hard work. They are already little troublemakers, looking for mischief!

ADOPTIONS:

Bright Eyes Sanctuary foster rabbits Jules Thunderfoot, Colette, and Pinnochio were adopted to incredibly wonderful, fantastic families! We are very selective here at Bright Eyes Sanctuary about our adopters so you can be sure these homes are the very best where these rabbits will be loved as part of the family and as sentient creatures. Yay for Jules, Colette, and Pinnochio!

Stayed tuned for more adventures from Bright Eyes Sanctuary!

Our Newest Sanctuary Intake - Beatrix

Here is the charming Miss Beatrix Potter. She is a 5.5 year old mini lop who came into the shelter because her previous owner was moving to a smaller space. Maybe they are one of the victim's of the housing crisis, I don't know but they did the responsible thing by bringing her to the shelter and not dumping her on the side of the road or at a grocery store like the people who dumped Vivien.

Beatrix is a total love bug and so very grateful to be living inside a warm, animal friendly environment. Her eyes lit up like Christmas trees when she saw the other bunnies here. It's been 5.5 years since she saw another bunny. Her previous owner kept her on bedding of sawdust which is terrible bedding because it is an eye irritant and harbors bacteria so well. As a result, poor Beatrix has a horrible eye infection. She is lucky that she does not have corneal ulcers but she does have plugged tear ducts.

And you can see here how bad her eyes were when she first came into the shelter. I took her to vet and she is on Baytril and eye drops and she is doing really much better but she still has a long way to go. If she had just had this one health problem, she could have stayed at the shelter, got spayed and then be adopted from there. I was even going to foster her through the shelter but it turns out she has two large mammary cysts which the vet said can be associated with hormonal surges and uterine cancer. Eighty-five percent of all female rabbits will develop uterine cancer by the age of five if they are not spayed.

So this means her spay will cost a little more. She will need to have her uterus biopsied to detect cancer and if so, then she will need xrays to determine if it has spread to the lungs. If it has spread, then she will receive chemo which in animals has the goal of enhancing the quality of life not the quantity. If she does have it, she will get the chemo and we'll keep her as comfortable as possible as long as possible like we have done for so many bunnies over the years.

If you think you would like to help us help Beatrix by making a donation, we would very much appreciate it. Just click on the button below to make a secure, tax-deductible donation. Bright Eyes Sanctuary is a 501c3 non-profit organization.

Pawprints in the Snow; Howling at the Winter Moon

Well Jessie got her treat and it was to play ball in the snow under the light of the moon at 3:00am! All of the dogs enjoyed running and getting their paws all frosty and getting snow in their coats. Mac ran around with the Kong biscuit ball in his mouth just hoping that it might anger Jessie and she'd want to get into it with him.

That Wacky Macky, my pointer-collie mix, what a punk he is. He even tries to taunt Rocky which is like suicidal! You do not mess with a 95lb. german shepherd who has a prey drive that is out of the galaxy! But that's my Mac, he is always looking to mix it up. I guess he knows deep down that Rocky or Jessie would never hurt him. Mac is everybody's sweetheart. But I still remember fondly the times when he was a pup and he pushed Wolfgang too far. He came in one day looking like he had a bullet hole in his face and he was so excited about it!

Of course I remember when we used to have a skunk living out back and Mac would get so excited when he got sprayed by the skunk! My crazy Mac, the things that make him happy seem so odd. He is definitely the beta dog of the pack, always pushing the leader, always wanting to challenge someone, anyone. His bite instinct is fantastic and he would have made a great Schutzhund. But wouldn't that look funny, such a pretty, smaller-sized Old World looking collie dog doing Schutzhund? But oh how proud he would be. He loves it when I have my big winter coat on and I start waving my forearm at him and he jumps up and bites and makes a lot of growly moan sounds like 'ah ya ya ya' and then he gets all happy and tears around the yard as fast as he can.

I remember the days when he used to run like the wind around the yard, he made roads in the yard which Rocky turned into a dirt pit. Yea we used to have grass. Now we have dirt and acorns. That's fine. We bought some of that special grass seed they use on football fields. I don't know, Rocky is pretty tough on the foilage. It might not work.

Well we won't have to worry about that today. The dirt is underneath some beautiful snow and there is much pouncing and spraying o' the white to be done.

Bon hiver!

Back in the Diaper Again

Well today it's become apparent that my little hobo sanctuary rabbit, Rebecca, who has lived here inside the house with for nearly 5 years, is in diapers for good now.

Maybe some of you read my article detailing Rebecca's experience with disability called, "Caring for a Disabled Rabbit." In it, I talk about how she was once partially paralyzed and used a wheelchair. She also had to wear a diaper due to incontinence. She got over both of those but she has been struggling with incontinence again recently.

She's been taking Bethanacol, a drug to help her bladder muscle tone because she had bladder sludge. Ouch! That is when a rabbit has a sandy sludge in their urine and as you can imagine, it must hurt to pee! Well she seems to have gotten rid of the bladder sludge but the incontinence is back. So she will get a messy butt from having stuff stick to her wet butt including poop and hay.

I really don't like having to give her a butt bath every day but I've been doing it. She is so good about all this but I know she hates it too. I love that old rabbit. She loves me too. She is such an inspiration to me. So to keep her butt from getting all messy and her tissue-thin skin there getting urine scald, she's back in diapers, this time for good.

She wears a size 1 Huggies. We have the system down really good now for changing her about every four hours. I get a plastic grocery bag and put her bottom half in it and open the diaper and it plops right off. Then I hoist her out of there and she does a twist while I pull a new diaper on her, from one side to the other, she twists at just the right time for me to seal the little belt. As she does the twist, she licks my arm which is really touching to me. It tells me she is glad I'm changing the diaper and that having worn it all day makes her feel good.

When she first started wearing them again earlier this week, she had a little trouble hopping around. She has such a funny hop anyway. Her hind feet do a hop but then they fall out behind her so her the top of her foot is flat on the floor. Then she swings her feet around like she's paddling and does it all again. It's a very strange bunny hop but let me tell you, she can book down the hallway faster than I can run after her!

I guess I'll have to do some butt baths now and then depending on when her cecals come. Oh and that reminds me! Joy of joys, I will have to feed her cecals to her since she won't be able to get to them in her diaper. Those are the recycled poops of the rabbit. They ferment their poop in their cecum and then eat it. It's how they draw the nutrition out of the hay. It's probably the only nutrition they get since veggies basically have no nutrition. Did you know that? Yea veggies these days are just for appearance.

So I will have to feed those cecals to her. I'll do a post on cecals soon. I have some great shots of cecal logs!

Here's my little hobo in her diaper looking all comfy and dry. This picture is actually from a couple of years ago but it's still the same bag of diapers I'm using today and she looks pretty much the same. Still beautiful and still the sweetest old lady rabbit you could ever meet. Bleckie!

What Cold Means to the Sanctuary

I love winter. More than any other season, this is my element. This is when I was born. Actually, I was born on a Tibetan holy day when the monks practice what is called Tuomo.

This is done on the coldest night of the year when monks go to the mountaintop cave and sit outside naked in the elements. Then they come inside and wrap themselves in sheets to soak up the sweat. Yea, sweat! They are sitting in a cave at the top of a mountain on the coldest night of the year and they're sweating. That is mind control for ya.

Anyway, that's probably why I like the cold.

But here at the sanctuary, we like the cold because it means no mosquitoes for one thing. So the dogs don't have to take heartworm medicine for at least one month of the year. That poison kills the heartworms but it is also not good for the dog really; a necessary evil.

The cold does wonders for the compost pile. The compost pile also provides a home for little burrowing creatures to hide from the cold deep inside of it. I'll try to post a picture of Mount Wannabeagrub when I get a chance.

And the cold also means snuggling! I snuggle with the bunnies, the cats, and the dogs. We hug a lot more in the winter. Although it's nice and warm in the house, there are drafts and so everyone knows it's cold oustide. So there's a good excuse for hugging right there.

The cold also means there's a possibility of snow! We all love to get snowed in and sleep in and not have me have to leave the house. When mom is home, everyone gets extra treats because I have time to dole them out.

And I guess the last thing the cold means (besides outrageous oil bills like the one for $450 I got today - ouch!) is the dogs are insanely happy. They can run and run outside for an hour and not get overheated like in July. This is what I call "collie weather." Although we only have one collie now, we used to have 3. So it will always be collie weather to me.

And that's the best thing of all! Collie weather!