Wednesday, February 18, 2009

another funeral






Ok, so some day we will most certainly laugh about this, but at the moment it is bordering on absurd.  I came home yesterday from my usual meeting and errand schedule and was not greeted by "Theodore/Thumper" in his hutch in the garage like I usually am.  I got out of the car and said his name - that usually gets him hoppin - and nothing, then I noticed that he was laying down in the back corner of the hutch, I reached in and touched him and he started seizing.  Apparently rabbit seizures are no more pleasant than a human seizure.  When it was over, I tried to pick him up and that triggered another seizure - one that apparently he did not survive.  Now as tragic an incident as that is by itself, this is the 4th bunny death that our family has endured in the last six months.  We started out just fine as bunny owners.  About a year and a half ago be got FooFoo, then a year after that we obtained Thumper #1 from a friend who's other rabbit had "run away" and things were fine for about a month, then one day FooFoo was dead - although Thumper #1 was fine.  We waited about a month to make sure that he was indeed fine, then we got another companion for him (they are social animals after all and like company) - Elvis lasted approximately a month with Thumper #1 and he too died.  At this point, we are concerned that we have a serial killer on our hands - especially when we find out that Thumper #1's first room mate (when he still belonged to our friends) did not in fact run away, but was also found dead like FooFoo and Elvis.  We decided that he didn't need a room mate after all, but much to out surprise, a month later, he was dead too.  That was enough for us, we decided to take a break from the bunny business for a while.  The hutch was thoroughly cleaned and left empty for 2 months when a different friend said that they had gotten a second bunny about 3 months ago but that they had irreconcilable differences and needs to find a new home for their Thumper - of course we obliged!  Thumper #2, who I called Theodore came to live with us and all was fine until yesterday - refer back to the beginning if all my rambling has you confused!  Needless to say, I have had it - what sort of bunny killer gas do we have here?  There are happy and healthy seeming one minute and dead as a doornail the next.  We decided to take Theodore/Thumper #2 to the exotic vet in town for a 'necropsy' or bunny autopsy as I prefer to call it - $50 later, we hope to know what is killing all our bunnies and breaking the girls' hearts on a monthly basis.  Please stay tuned.....

5 comments:

Liz Wilkey (a.k.a. A Mom on Spin) said...

Maybe you're pregnant????

Ranch Girl said...

Oh my goodness, that is so sad. Make sure to let us all know what horrible bunny disease is running rampant in your house!

Jenni said...

lizspin beat me to the obvious answer. Just as a side funny note, in my Dad's medical school journal (when I was a kid) there was a picture of my parents looking very suprised. The caption read, "The rabbit died?!" I thought it was referring to the rabbit my Dad operated on for practice that had in fact died. It took me many years to find out what it really meant.

Jenni said...

P.S. - This would be a perfect story to announce a pregnancy though.

mom3crazygirls said...

ok ladies, the dead rabbit reference totally escaped me when I was writing my post!! That is so funny! I could be competing with Octomom if that was the case!!