Amy’s Gripping Commentary

Today’s Disapproving Rabbit is Arliss!

My favorite comment is that “she’s like a punk rock retiree”

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And everyone needs a giant guinea pig along with a regular one.

Happy 10th birthday, Arliss!!

She had another checkup today and the vet couldn’t find any evidence of the abscess. So unless we feel something else collect under the skin, she just gets to finish healing! No more poking and flushes. It only took three abscess surgeries after the incisor removal surgery and a lot of aftercare to get us here. Her weight is stable and I will keep supplementing her food to make her stronger. She’s been through a lot in less than two months.

We’re pretty sure of her birth month from the story of the person who had her first, plus she was young but full grown when she came to me nine years ago. I just had one bunny at that time: my first, the beloved Luke, who later became Arliss’ pal. My friend didn’t want her bunnies anymore and Arliss and Cow came to live with me because she was going to give them to a circus or petting zoo. Can you imagine Arliss in a petting zoo? hahaha She and Cow had some seriously rough starts under that family’s care; I learned a lot about vet care with my new acquisitions! Arliss was originally named Avarice, which I thought was a terrible name for a bunny. I wanted to change it but call her something that sounded similar and that’s how she became Arliss!

Arliss’ first day home back in 2001. You can see she came with the glare.

Some random thoughts to prove I’m still alive.

I did indeed have cadaver bone put in during my osteomyelitis treatment! It was irradiated, powdered, and mixed with what is basically plaster of Paris, but it still sounds exotic. Unfortunately I’ve had some additional dental pain recently. You’d think I traumatized my teeth or something.

Arliss had her fourth surgery a week ago (vet and I agreed she didn’t need a CT scan after all) and she’s doing great! She even gained weight in the last two weeks.

Loving the Indy Winter Farmers Market on Saturday mornings. The place is PACKED and I love seeing cyclists with panniers riding in the snow! Note: the local chickens went on strike when it got super cold the last couple of weeks, so eggs were harder to come by. I like being able to get a half dozen a month since we don’t use more than that, and then I can take the carton back to the farmer to use again.

I discovered recently-reopened El Sol de Tala. This town has more Mexican (I use that as a geographic/ethnic term loosely) restaurants than you can imagine, but this one place stands out. They even have a veggie menu. It’s not the same old enchiladas anymore, people!

Following a craving, I had French toast at Denny’s, and even if they hadn’t ruined it with cinnamon and powdered sugar, it still was nowhere as good as Dad’s. He also blows away every pancake on earth.

I’ve finally heard from some of the relocation folks and the target start date in Ireland is March 1. There’s so much to do that it’s hard not just to plop on the couch with 81 SVU reruns on Tivo and ignore the obvious (that’s how many were scheduled in this two week period). One of my current focuses (okay, foci) is pantry raid: use up all the groceries that line our cupboards and freezer. In the past week we had breakfasty stuff to use up biscuits and fake sausages and last night I made chik’n and rice casserole. My freezer has several fake meat products that I’ve always kept as backup, but usually have been creative enough not to need for most cooking. I see a lot of chili in our future for the ground ‘beef’ crumbles…

Casper has a little love nibble for her best pals. Walter may be missing some whiskers on the sides of his face, but he loves the attention. I think it’s hilarious when her nose gets pushed up.

Ms. Arliss isn’t doing so well.

She had three surgeries in December, including having incisors removed and then two for this abscess thing that came up. I dropped her off again today (she’s been to the vet eight times), but this is the first time the vet was concerned that she wasn’t bouncing back. In other words, she’s not being her usual cranky, bitchy self.

I have been flushing the marsupialized areas every night, and the original location is healing very well. But now the big new one under her throat is getting worse and the options are CT scan to determine if there’s general infection in the jaw bone, which would lead to either a major surgery in the area to remove lymph nodes and whatever else might be contributing the pus, or just palliative care if it’s too extensive to treat. Or I could choose one of those paths without the diagnostic benefit of the CT scan: expensive but might save her an unnecessary fourth surgery if we consider that route. Repeated anesthetic experiences aren’t exactly easy on a geriatric body. Arliss’ ten cranky years have been very special and I don’t want to see her lose that zest for boxing and biting me (the biting part is easy to handle now that she doesn’t have teeth!). She’s outlived two bunny mates and I fear I’m not a good substitute. I try to make medical decisions consistent with quality of life, prognosis, and diagnosis as best as you can have one, which the CT scan should provide. She’s lost 20% of her weight and we’re at a crossroads. The constant care does allow me to spend a lot of time with her, though, and that’s important for me to feel as confident as I can in the medical decisions as well as for the closure that will have to come eventually. I’m just not ready to lose my little snot yet.

Arliss in healthier, more vertical times

Some special buns have passed on very recently, too, all some of my favorite fosters.

Jolene’s recent illness was an aggressive lymphoma. I named her after the Dolly Parton song. She had been adopted and returned twice and didn’t deserve to be shuffled around so much, but I’m kind of glad she was with us at the end.

Duncan’s mom (I knew him as Digit) let me know he passed today. He was about ten and recently dealt with stroke and cancer. Digie was the first bun selected for our Petco adoption program years ago and he flunked out for a health issue, which meant he got to stay with me for a long time before he found a great home. He was a really cool guy and the one who taught me how to give sub-q fluids and that parsley was healing magic.

Honey and Felix were my very first foster rabbits many years ago. Ms. Honey had outlived her friend and was almost 13 when she left us this weekend. I remember when they got in my kitchen cabinets one time and were hanging out in the dish rack.

Life is sweeter when you make it more comfortable for another creature, especially those someone else threw out first.

Tired of all those In God We Trust plates? No specialty plate that appeals to your convictions? Join me in petitioning for an Indiana license plate that supports spay/neuter for low-income residents’ pets. Spay Neuter Services of Indiana (SNSI), a local organization which already does this great work, is applying for the license plate, which would support more of this subsidized-surgery-funding statewide. They need 500 signatures to be considered for the plate.

SNSI also sponsors low-cost spay/neuter a couple times per year without the income restrictions. We actually used one of their certificates to get Walter fixed a couple of years ago. They also sell the cool Peace Love Spay Neuter shirts.

You can click here to get the info and print a petition. They need actual, hand-signed signatures mailed to their P.O. box by December 31. The petition is presented to the BMV who decides if the plate will be issued. A spay-neuter plate has been attempted in the past unsuccessfully, if I remember correctly.

Note that signing the petition is a ‘pledge’ to purchase one of these plates at a $40 premium to the normal plate fee, $25 of which goes to the S/N surgery subsidies. (However, I don’t think anyone beats down your door to compel your purchase of the plate!) If you’ll be seeing me this week, I have a copy on me, so feel free to sign it and I’ll send it in for us.

Arliss, who had her incisors removed less than two weeks ago, had another surgery Monday when an abscess popped up at her one-week checkup. Now there’s a hole in her face (‘marsupialized’) that we are flushing daily to get the gunk out and hope it heals from the inside out. Meanwhile she won’t eat so I’m syringing food and pain meds. I tend to panic when bunnies don’t eat (it warrants panic, actually). We are having lots of cuddle time even if she’s pissed about it, and it’s gratifying when she laps up the liquid food from the syringe. Poor thing is hungry but it hurts her to eat.

MEANWHILE, foster Jolene came down with one heck of a URI this weekend so she’s on antibiotics, but she’s SO congested she’s not eating either! At least I think that’s why she’s not eating. I had her in the bathroom tonight after David’s shower. He thought I was nuts, but I’m hoping to steam her nose open. She sounds terrible. Acts hungry when I syringe her food too, but it’s a slow process because she panics when she stops to breathe around the snot. I think the nebulizer is next.

Vegas has been on antibiotics for her snotty nose for weeks and is not sounding particularly better, but at least she’s acting great and eating on her own.

Of course Casper’s on quite the regimen now too, but she’s eating and holds still for fluids, plus I finally learned to stuff pills down her throat, so she’s relatively easy. Feeding her four times a day is hard on the work schedule, though.

And I had my top-down root canal on Monday, courtesy of friends Halcion and Valium, so I don’t remember a darn thing after they let me snooze with a blankie and neck pillow with the lights off, and I never did find out if they put a cadaver graft in there. Guess I’ll find out next week at the recheck. The Darvocet made me sick so I’m limping by on OTC stuff. And I broke some of my Frankengum stitches already. In an odd twist, I am flushing my surgery site with Chlorhexidine, the same stuff we’re using on Arliss’ abscess.

I’ve been so confused by all the pet medicating I keep forgetting to take my own antibiotics.

If the bunnies would just start eating on their own I would seriously cry with relief.

…is when you see your dog for the first time after she’s been at the hospital for 36 hours!

I took Casper to the emergency clinic on Sunday morning after she’d been up all night vomiting and squatting in the yard. It seemed a little strange to me that she walked in on her own and yet needed to be on IV antibiotics and fluids for so long, with lots of bloodwork, urinalysis and culture, ultrasound, and radiography. I felt badly that she was so sick but I wasn’t even sure she needed a vet yet (and I should have taken her sooner!). After 24 hours her fever was gone and she was able to keep food down, so she was released to me that night with four medications, fluids to dispense at home, and a bunch of special food.

Besides a raging UTI, poor Casper is in chronic kidney failure; her kidneys have less than 25% functionality left. If we can maintain her fluids and diet and prevent UTIs, she may have months or years left. But we really don’t know.

The time she was gone was very hard for me, especially going to work. Of course she’s acting totally normal at home now. She doesn’t seem sick at all. In fact, eight hours after she got home, she found two-day-old frozen puke in the yard–her dinner that didn’t stay down before she went to the doggy hospital. She ate it. That’s the Casper I know.

I’m just beginning to learn about her renal failure care, and we have lots of checkups in our future. It’s good to have her home, shaved belly and all.

A ‘review’ of sorts on Indianapolis Veterinary Emergency Clinic, near I-465 and Emerson Ave. on the southeast side: They were very thorough and the doctors seem very competent. I didn’t think my initial technician visit was very clear (she took a brief history and took Casper away and apparently the vet did bloodwork and urinalysis on her without me even seeing the her first, waiting forever for an update; I expected to talk about what diagnostics would be performed or what her initial exam revealed before getting too far, but the work done was appropriate). There is a lot of bureaucracy around phone calls and contacts and visiting hours and discharge appointments, but it seems important given the number of patients they are managing. Fortunately they gave me a handout about what to expect in contacting them and hearing from them, and my questions were always answered… I just got worried more than once when I didn’t get update phone calls when I expected them. They communicated well with my personal vet (who did take initiative to call them when I talked to her) and provided me with copies of Casper’s diagnosis and treatment and test results, and sent copies to my personal vet as well. Overall it was VERY expensive but I feel we received excellent care. I just wish all pet owners could afford to do this detailed work. It’s comforting to know they are also a specialty/referral clinic so ultrasound interpretation and technology were advanced.

BTW, I’ve also had good experiences up at Circle City if you are near the NW side, though I’ve only been there with rabbits. For small animals, this is the ONLY emergency place in town. My experience with their specialty service was also good (also with a rabbit, a coronary ultrasound, I think).

Arliss has been sick lately. A few hundred in diagnostics and supportive care early this week didn’t turn up much more than the dental disease we knew about and dehydration, but now she was needing tooth trims every six weeks or sooner, so it was time to ditch the incisors.

Over four years ago she had one removed, and I commented how she would hopefully not need trims in the future. Well, we got through the meantime with fewer-than-annual trims, but suddenly she was having problems, so there ya go. I let that vet back then talk me into just removing one tooth, and I guess four healthy years aren’t so bad.

Well, now it was time for the other three to go, this time with a different vet. A few hundred more bucks, and she came home today looking rough (the first picture) but at least is eating on her own. The vet did find some pus down in the lower root area, which mirrors the problem four years ago. Hopefully her flushing it well will prevent further abscessing. The vet suggested something like that probably happened from an impact or fall, and I was thinking how she used to geronimo off the closet shelves in my old house…

We had some serious bonding time today when I discovered they’d forgotten to take the catheter out of her leg and I had to do it! I had a hard time getting the bandage off and I’m sure it hurt to be moving that thing around, but she put up with me. I gave her good pain meds and she’s resting somewhat comfortably now. Arliss will be ten in a couple of months and has been pretty healthy over that decade, and I’m hoping this will be the last major thing for the rest of her life. Her molars and bloodwork look good, so I’m hopeful. The vet said as we were leaving today she hopes we can make her “one of those 14-year bunnies!”

Walter took this opportunity to ask for a belly rub.

I am not responsible for that window trim color, which looks worse in person. Let’s just leave it at that. (You may remember our house painting argument history.) But did you notice my cascading flowers are still doing great on December 4? And that orchid just below grew all those buds in the last two weeks. Who says there’s no global warming…

My name is Juju. You can raise funds to pay my vet bills just by shopping!

Donate through online shopping at GoodShop

You may have heard of GoodSearch, where instead of using Google or other search pages you search from this one and a donation goes to the organization of your choice every time you click. They are also associated with GoodShop, which gives me more bang for the buck–a small percentage of my online purchases (and there are lots!) adds up quickly this time of year, plus I have to say I’m really a Google addict and contributing through GoodShop makes me feel less guilty about the penny-per-search I lose in the other area.

Anyway, GoodShop or a variation has been around for awhile. The difference here is that GoodShop actually has a ton of places you would actually shop, like AMAZON! It also includes Target, Walmart, Office Depot, Gap, eBay, iTunes, Best Buy, Crate and Barrel, NewEgg, and lots of other places (EDIT: even Travelocity is on there!). Donations seem to be around the 1% area, which vary per retailer. That may not seem like much to you, but our tiny rescue has earned $80 this year alone just from one-penny-per-click searches, so 1% coming off big holiday purchases can help us a lot!

I was able to install a toolbar on my browser so before I shop, I click on the store through that, and then I shop normally. The toolbar also alerts you to special coupon codes at that retailer! Once you pick your charity it remembers it for you. You have to go through the site/toolbar before shopping on the retailer’s site or your shopping donation won’t register, though I’ve noted the Amazon visits I make sometimes remember how I got there earlier. Anyway, the toolbar handily lights up as bright yellow when the donation is in effect, reminding me what I’m doing and also letting me know if it’s not working! (Another tip: if you are shopping and have stuff in your cart and realize you forgot to go through GoodShop first, you can generally go to the GoodShop link/toolbar, click to your retailer, and it will still have your stuff in the cart for checkout!)

There are thousands of organizations on GoodShop (the same ones on GoodSearch), so help out your favorite charity when you do your online shopping!

Note: the links in this blog post are prepopulated with our nonprofit, Indiana House Rabbit Society. If you click from links here and then shop (or search), you’ll automatically help our bunnies. But you can also switch to a different charity once you’re at the page if there is someone else you prefer to support!

Donate through online searches at GoodSearch

Donate through online shopping at GoodShop

“What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?”
-Adam Smith

The quote doesn’t have direct relation to this post but I really liked it the other day, and identified with it. It does set the stage for how I feel about preparing myself to be more flexible for opportunities that come my way by being “stable” in life, which I guess is a comment at least on financial and professional well-being, or just being in a good place. Allow me to share the big news, the decision that has given me nightmares, the huge change on the horizon:

We are moving to Ireland. Holy shit.

A couple of months of are you mobile? will you? maybe? for two years. is there a budget? wait for the meeting. what do you think? here are the benefits. dog quarantine. abandon pets. no, wait, only for a year and lesser benefits. hand wringing. never mind, good benefits are back. paperwork issues to cover domestic partner. how about insurance? most questions answered. And the answer is…yes?

Now, nothing is official until all the paperwork is done and visas are granted, but after all this time of not knowing and feeling like life has been on hold while figuring out how to handle an international move without really telling anyone has been pretty challenging. I feel like I will regret it if I don’t take this opportunity and I’ll never be offered another chance if I turn it down now. My employer is cutting jobs and yet asking if I would like to spend a year abroad at their expense. I’ve always wanted to do something like that. In fact, it’s just ‘life’ getting in the way that makes it hard: David’s business and our pets, and the general hassle of figuring out what to do with your stuff. But I have been saving money, simplifying my possessions and expenses and life, all to be able to take an opportunity just like this! It seems almost perfect: I’ll have the same job but in a new place and my employer pays all the expenses to get me there and back, and pays for my housing and car too. There will never be a better offer, I will never be less entrenched in life, I have enough funds to make it fun and I’m still young enough to call it an adventure but old enough that I don’t want to always sleep in hostels when I go on vacation. Add to that a partner who seems willing to try the adventure and we’re in business.

David and the dogs get to come. It’s hard to figure out how he will maintain a business back home (let alone an income in Ireland without a work permit), but we think he’ll stay behind the first couple of months while the dogs finish their at-home quarantine. Now I have to work to find guardians for my rabbits, an agonizing part of the decision to go. I have bunny friends I trust and I will set up a stipend plus cover vet fees, but a lot of my nightmares have been about doing wrong by my pets. Was it not contacts in rabbit rescue that got me this job in the first place? How can I send Arliss and Vegas to live with someone else? They’re OLD! Plus the pigs, who at least seem to have a place with my parents. And there’s even a frog becoming homeless.

There are so many things to plan I don’t quite know where to start, but at least I seem to be past the nightmare/decision stage and now we’re getting into the practical planning stuff. Departure for me won’t be for a couple of months. Just how much prep will I get done? Can I purge some of my belongings? I love the idea of living simply (a furnished place where I can’t haul most of my stuff anyway is a great starting point), but wow. Just figuring out what to do for a cell phone (this would be why I still haven’t gotten that iPhone) and banking and OH GEEZ I HAVE TO DRIVE ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE STREET… it can be overwhelming. Exciting, yes, but I’m a planner and this is stressful.

Short term: line up pet care (and get the buns healthy) and figure out what’s going to happen to the house while we’re gone. Mid-term: buy raingear? Couple months: move by myself and entertain myself for a couple of months. After that: stress about dogs in cargo hold.

But I bet County Cork will be fun!

Any advice is appreciated.

This is what we do. And we have seen worse.

These kinds of links come through on some of my email lists for the national organization. Below is a link to a blog post about a perceived need for House Rabbit Society and the American Rabbit Breeders’ Association to put aside their differences for the good of rabbits. A slightly edited copy of my response to the article follows, though you can probably get a lot out of it even without reading the original post.

http://tibetanaltar.blogspot.com/2009/11/rabbits-buddhism-and-politics-of-fancy.html

My response

Perhaps after years of rescue I am jaded, but my favorite comment in this blog post was about breeders coming back in their next life as rabbits in a breeder’s care. I really don’t think those who exploit these creatures–and breeding IS exploitation, even for pets, let alone culling/food/fur–have stopped to think about the big picture they fuel in tandem with an uneducated public.

HRS (of which I am a part, but I’m speaking from my own personal experiences here) fights battles on several fronts. We are faced with too many homeless rabbits in shelters and as strays. Many came from some hobby or 4H breeding program; others come through pet stores; and then there are all the accidents and experiments that happen in pet owners’ homes. Less frequently but still significantly there are abuse/neglect cases, though we respond to requests for help from local animal control agencies and do not ‘raid,’ ‘investigate,’ nor ‘plot against’ breeding facilities, despite what others might believe in the ARBA community. We simply don’t have the resources to fight back at every source, since most days are spent treading water and making hard decisions about which shelter bunnies can come home with us and which must stay to be euthanized for lack of space in foster care, available good homes, or funds to pay the vet. The mission is one of rescue and education, not politics and infiltration.

Like Judith, I’d love to see the gap bridged between ARBA and HRS, if only to stop some of the vitriol that poisons those younger members. Trust me, we want to be ‘out of business’ (but let me be clear we’re all going broke doing rescue, despite the hilarious references to us as HR$ in some breeding circles). We don’t want there to be rabbits who need rescue! The curious position of rabbits in the Western world as both livestock and pet makes this battle more than twice as hard for HRS than it does for a dog or cat rescue group. Can anyone imagine siding with a puppy mill, or passing local laws that allow one to eat or shoot or administer blunt trauma or break the necks of extra dogs from breeding programs? HRS has to focus on the flow of homeless rabbits because that is the most urgent need, the lives lost daily. We are hardly equipped to fight battles of eating/breeding/fur-producing, and indeed that’s not the mission. Our education efforts (which are significant) are primarily at the pet-owner level and convincing pet stores to cease the sale of rabbits. As surprising as it may be to some members of ARBA, we aren’t out picketing nor are we even all vegetarians!

One of the biggest barriers to HRS having a presence at an ARBA convention (other than policy) is that our mere presence gives the appearance of sanctioning that breeding exploitation. Casual attendees could easily assume we are part of, aligned with, or in agreement with rabbit breeding and showing, which is definitely not the case. Yes, we may post educational materials in some pet stores–but not stores that sell rabbits! That implies that it’s ok to buy a bunny, which promotes breeding and the rabbit as a ‘product,’ something against our philosophy.

I appreciated your thoughts in this post, and indeed if every rabbit-lover were so reasoned, the gap between HRS and ARBA would not be as wide. As it is, we struggle to save lives daily, and the other organization creates and destroys them. I fear never the twain shall meet until breeding and showing – exploitation – are out of consideration on ARBA’s part, and that seems unlikely.

Published last week and then retracted
Louie was found as a stray near Louisville with five other Dutch rabbits, and someone caught them and took them to a shelter. We think he is the daddy of the bunch, since he arrived via a dog transport to our rescue yesterday with four young lookalike bunnies. One member of the group had already been adopted from the shelter.

This nasty lump on his foot burst open yesterday and bled all over; I was halfway to the emergency vet before it stopped. I dropped him off at my vet this morning (after finding another lump), who has determined these are tumors and he’s been licking at the one on his foot for awhile. Multiple fast-growing tumors, including one in an area that would likely require amputation to treat, plus some sneezing to top it off means our resource-strapped rescue has decided to euthanize. Treating a bunny with these issues is difficult and expensive, and then he’s not particularly adoptable to the average person looking for a healthy rabbit.

This may be the hardest call I’ve been part of, because Louie has been acting relatively ok other than worrying that thing on his foot. Normally we wouldn’t pull a rabbit in his condition from a shelter (and in fact, most shelters would have euthanized him when he came in the door), but he showed up on the transport and we were obviously better qualified to assess his wound than the place he came from, who apparently didn’t notice the issue or at least didn’t tell us about it. He had a warm place to stay with me last night and a full belly. If we conserve those funds, we can rescue several other rabbits…but it’s still a crummy choice to have to make.

Some days I wonder if karma will come back to get me. I feel like I have saved so many lives but signing this euthansia authorization feels like I’m setting back the score a little. Is it better to wait until QOL suffers more? You can’t leave a condition like that untreated, but the treatment isn’t easy either.

Head vs. heart, logic vs. compassion, data vs. Dutch bunny.

Update
Shortly after faxing the euthanasia form, the vet called and wondered if we could work something out. While we still can’t afford to help him much, she is donating some services and we’re funding some basic care and we’ll see if he can be helped. Louie lived an extra week so far and now will have his tumors removed and assessed. It’s funny how things work themselves out, at least for a little while. She says he’s a nice older bunny and content hanging out at the clinic.