Great stories and photos
Savior Successes
Here are some of the great success stories of rabbits with major injuries that recovered to live happy, fulfilling lives.
Val & Tino
In The Beginning – I finally made the decision to adopt a couple of bunnies after considering it for about 2 years and spending the past decade pet free. Between the horrors of dating in your late 30s and the covid pandemic, a fuzzy companion was looking like a sound decision. Living in an RV and having a nomadic job and lifestyle presented many pet challenges. A friend suggested looking into Netherland Dwarfs, as they were one of the tiniest bunnies and would work the best in my tiny home. I scoured all the rabbit rescues that I knew about, at the time I wasn’t aware that there were as many as I know that exist now. This knowledge is something I’d love to see more well known. I was having no luck finding any local dwarfs to rescue and wasn’t hearing back from any rescues, so on Easter Sunday (April 4, 2021), I was moved to scour craigslist ads. Then I saw them, the cutest baby buns I’ve ever laid my eyes on. Having trouble deciding if I wanted a black bunny or a gray bunny, here were 2 siblings (a black female and a gray male) being sold as a pair, what luck! I sent an email and heard back pretty quickly that they were still available. I arranged to pick them up the following day.
Immediately I began ordering necessities from Amazon, kennel, litter box, hay feeder, toys, etc. I stumbled across the House Rabbits Society website and quickly learned that bunnies needed more space than most people realized, so I decided that I would eventually train them to be free roaming house bunnies. To be quite honest, this is where the majority of my research began. I also learned very quickly how very little I actually knew about rabbits. I had never had one before, so I studied and studied and studied. I had put out a poll to my friends regarding what to name the bunnies. Since they were born on Valentine’s day, I wanted Valentine themed names, so I went with Val(entine) & (Valen)Tino. I decided to create an instagram to share stories about them as well!
The following morning I woke up early and drove all the way to College Station from Austin, Texas to pick them up. It was a 7hr round trip. The owner insisted on meeting me at a random gas station. I didn’t think much of it, as it’s not unusual to not want a stranger to meet at your residence. She was very nice and helpful, but the bunnies were in a very industrial grated cage and looked very frightened, as would any animal being taken away from everything they ever knew at 7weeks old. I only had a box lined with a towel to carry them home in, but they sat in the front seat right next to me. I learned that the owner was a
breeder and that the parents were show bunnies with lots of awards, and these bunnies could have come with papers, but she didn’t stamp them because I was only taking them as pets. I went against my personal standards of supporting breeders, but I was already there and so I took the bunnies for $75/each. She sent me home with some starter pellets and hay.
The entire ride home Valentine never moved an inch. Tino was frantically pacing and looking around for somewhere to hide. I tried comforting them and made sure to not play any music or make startling sounds that would frighten them further. When we got home I realized I hadn’t really thought it through on where I was going to house them until their kennel arrived the following day, so at first I tried letting them sleep in the bed with me, but was too frightened they would fall off, so I made a nice living area for them with towels and food/water in my shower for the evening. After tucking in the buns, I went to put myself to bed.
Seizures & Sleepless Nights – Suddenly I heard a loud violent rustling in the shower, so I immediately rushed in to see what happened. Tino was across the other side looking startled while Valentine was laying down resting where I left her. At first I had imagined that maybe they had a quarrel, but that was clearly not the case when I looked in on them. When everything appeared ok I went back to bed. This continued several more times throughout the night. Finally I decided to stay up and sleep on the bathroom floor so I could observe if it happened again. Then I watched both bunnies cuddle up together to fall asleep from exhaustion. All of a sudden, Tino was flung across the floor from a dead sleep as if he had no control over his hind legs and into the glass door. Horrified and panicked, I quickly took him out to comfort him. Not sure how to house him safely for the night, I found a large box and padded it to make him a softer temporary safe place to rest. This was the beginning of several months of sleepless nights on the bathroom floor with my bunnies.
First thing in the morning I reached out to the breeder inquiring about the behavior. She said it sounded like a possible seizure and claimed that she hadn’t seen him do it before. She then suggested that I could have caused it by leaving the rabbits in the car alone before heading back to Austin when I went inside for less than 2 minutes to use the restroom. I sent her the weather forecast for the day showing a high of 52 degrees and asked how she thought 2 minutes on a very cold day in a car could cause a rabbit to have seizures all night. She then suggested that perhaps something in my shower caused it. I told her how I only clean with vinegar and am pretty holistic and don’t use harsh chemicals in my home or on my body. I thought it very odd that every suggestion she made pointed that I was to blame for the bunny having seizures, it was very heartbreaking to even consider, but definitely raised more red flags.
I joined every bunny facebook group I could find, disabled rabbit groups, binky forums, and found as many resources as I could. The following day I got Tino squeezed in to an appointment with an old farm vet over an hour away north. The guy came in and took a quick look at Tino, then aggressively squeezed his skin as hard as he could and jabbed him uncaringly with a shot of vitamin e & selenium and sent us on our way. Horrified from the experience, I took little Tino home to rest and the episodes continued to worsen. I called around to every vet listed as bunny savvy on the house rabbit society website in my area, and only one would take him the same day on an emergency appointment, but for an extra $75 fee on top of the emergency appointment fee of $100 and extra fees for every test they did! I drove him all the way to Pflugerville to White Rock Veterinary Hospital, where he was seen by Dr. Schroeder.
Turns out the bunnies were ridden with coccidia, hookworms and possible e. cuniculi. We were sent home with a slew of medicines in hopes that after clearing all the parasites and bugs, the seizures would go away. I immediately notified the breeder and told her that the vet informed me that the only way to contact these bugs would have been passed down from the mother during birth or by eating the feces of another rabbit. She told me her rabbits had a clean bill of health and that in no way were sick, then she proceeded to brag about how many shows they have won and absolutely refused to get them tested and even accused the vet of making up the results of the fecal and blood tests! She suggested they got the bugs from the one half night of living in my shower and then offered to take the bunnies back and replace them with new ones! I told her no thanks and that she could just refund me my money paid, and she did. I never heard a word from her again. I tried to figure out how to report her, but she only communicated through a secure craigslist email and met me at a random location, so I had no idea what town she even lived in. I decided to focus my energy on helping my bunny instead of pursuing this horrible breeder.
After 2 weeks on the medicine, still no changes. Dr. Riggin, the owner of the clinic, saw Tino a few more times, then sent off expensive blood tests for everything he could possibly think to charge me high dollar for. Over $3k later, still no answers. He had us back almost every 2 weeks. He put Tino on Phenobarbital. Then the seizures began to worsen, so the dosage kept getting raised higher and higher. Then Tino was put on Keppra in addition to the Phenobarbital. He just got worse and worse and I was still living on the bathroom floor with the rabbits day after sleepless night, but I wanted to be there for Tino when he had an episode. They were several times a day and several times a night. I felt trapped and my social life disappeared. Friends were getting upset that I had to cancel plans to take care of my rabbit. It was one of the most stressful moments in my life. Then Dr. Riggin said the only thing to do next was an (expensive) $4k MRI.
“Friends were getting upset that I had to cancel plans to take care of my rabbit. It was one of the most stressful moments in my life.”
Still being out of work for over a year for covid, I was already drained from the now over $3k in vet visits, but I wanted to do whatever I could for poor sweet little Tino. So a friend helped me create a video compiled with videos of his episodes, and I started a gofundme campaign. In just 3 days the funds were completely raised by our amazing bunny community! Thanks to Jonathan Silva, I woke up on the 3rd morning to find the remaining $1500 complete, and was able to get Tino an appointment that Friday for his MRI. This was only a couple of weeks after having his invasive neutering surgery, so you can imagine how much anxiety I had in having to make the decision to put him under anesthesia again so soon (turns out he was cryptorchid and had to be cut open more invasive than Valentine’s spay surgery). Luckily he went through both experiences just fine. The MRI results came back normal, in fact after paying all that money, I barely even got an explanation of the findings, still yet to this day other than everything looked fine!
The Birds, The Bees & The Buns – During all of this, the bunnies went from 7weeks old (when I adopted them) to 10weeks old very quickly and we had a big gap between 10weeks and 4months (the age where they were first eligible to get their spay/neutering) that they could possibly make babies. So it was very stressful keeping them safely separated and alone while giving them each ample space vertically and horizontally to be as comfortable as possible. I built a custom stacked housing that took up my entire bathroom and bedroom and somehow squeezed myself next to them on the floor many many sleepless nights. All of this went on before their 4 month birthday! At one point Tino was on 9 different medicines! After the MRI, my goal was to have him off of all medications by the end of the year. I had him weaned off by his 7th month birthday!
A week after their spay/neutering surgery (which they had on their 4month birthday), I took down the cage and partition and let them hang out together, fully supervised. They did so well, never once messing with their stitches or bothering each other. One of the most joyous moments in their lives was getting to lay next to each other. I never separated them again. They healed up very quickly. I realized then how important it is to have a rabbit for your rabbit. The bond of my rabbits has been strong since I brought them home and remains even stronger today.
Adventures Buns – Soon after Tino’s MRI we had to leave and go on the road in the work RV for my job. I travel all over the nation helping save people from skin cancer. By this point, both bunnies were fully potty trained. I invested in a pet carrier that doubled as a stroller/carseat/shoulder bag/backpack/roller bag all 5-in-1! One of the best investments I have ever made. I had already been training them by slowly introducing them to different music and sounds, taking them in the car to the vets,
and eventually taking them out to the park across the street and walking them around the block in the stroller. I knew when we left to go on the road for work, they were going to have to fly on an airplane, so I wanted them to be in the least amount of shock and fear as possible. They did extremely well on the plane and all the devoted training paid off!
We ended up traveling to 24 states during the 4month tour (in the Destination Healthy Skin RV that we picked up in Boston). The bunnies really got used to sniffing and running around in new hotel rooms and parks. I couldn’t have them in the RV while we conducted skin cancer screenings, so I would book a hotel room just for them during event days so they could have the space to run around and play all day while I worked. I just didn’t have the heart to lock them in a kennel all day just to save myself money, especially with Tino’s episodes, which have still continued to this day.
Alternative Therapies – When I slowly weaned him off all his pharmaceuticals, the episodes progressively got better (less severe and less frequent, but still every day). At the same time I put him on CBD (at first I had him on CBD oil, but soon learned that oils are sublingual and so he wasn’t responding well since he wasn’t holding it under his tongue). A friend educated me about nano-emulsified powder CBD that can be added to a treat/water/etc and good right into the system.
Today Tino remains on the CBD powder along with a chinese herbal medicine blend for seizures called Di Tan Tang. He gets a teeny nip of Di Tan Tang in the AM and a nip of CBD powder in the PM. I just use a small measuring spoon labeled “nip” and put it between 2 craisins, and he takes it easy. Dr. Riggin checks his blood glucose levels regularly to make sure he’s not getting too much sugar, but we decided this was working well and that it was safe to continue.
Tino is experimenting with Bicom bioresonance therapy as well as photobiomodulation laser therapy and acupuncture. At this point he’s only had one session of each, but had great results from all of them. He had the laser therapy at the same time as the acupuncture, and it was the first time since his “gotya day” that he didn’t have a seizure for 24hours straight! They did resume again after that.
Trouble in Bun Tooth Town – A little about Valentine. She came with all the same bugs but no seizures. We have concluded that Tino has idiopathic epilepsy. Valentine has her own set of issues. She has a congenital malocclusion disorder where her teeth overlap and can’t grind themselves down,
Tino does not have this issue. We think it’s due to breeding as well, as her head is very tiny. She has to get her teeth trimmed once every month and a half, or else they overgrow up into her gums and cause her pain. If her incisors are not trimmed regularly, it will cause her molars to grow unbalanced as well. As long
As long as we keep the incisors trimmed properly, the molars are fine. Dr. Riggin tried to convince us to have all of her incisors removed during spay surgery to save us the trip and cost every month, claiming that rabbits adjust to using their molars very quickly. I just did not have the heart to take her teeth from her as a way to save myself a tiny trip and cost. Her teeth are still doing fine and nothing makes me happier than to watch her flop over and go to sleep and see those adorable tiny teeth in her mouth while she snores.
“We used a supposed rabbit savvy vet who used wire cutters to trim her teeth!! They were falling all over the place and little pieces were breaking off here and there while she was cutting them!! I was so horrified!”
A warning to all, please be careful when seeking a vet to trim your rabbit’s teeth and please do not attempt it at home. While we were on the road, we were at the mercy of random vets. We were in San Francisco when Valentine was severely due for a teeth trim. We used a supposed rabbit savvy vet who used wire cutters to trim her teeth!! They were falling all over the place and little pieces were breaking off here and there while she was cutting them!! I was so horrified! Then I read afterwards about how it can cause fractures all the way to the root and completely damage your rabbit’s teeth and cause them a lot of pain and even infection and will result in the need to remove the teeth or even death in some cases!!
This is one thing we love about Dr. Riggin, even though he is very expensive and is more of a business person than a caring vet, he absolutely does know a lot about rabbits and has a lot of specialized tools. He has a special drilling tool that painlessly trims teeth quickly and perfectly straight, with no need for anesthesia and no risk of chipping or fracturing. Please ensure your vet has specialized tools for these kinds of procedures and NEVER let a vet trim your rabbit’s teeth with wire cutters, or painfully file them manually while they are awake!
