A Near-Death Encounter

Miss Giggles gives me bunny kisses as I prepare her meds. 

Miss Giggles was a dwarf rex rabbit I inherited from my daughter when Kirstin moved into a small apartment in Toronto. The bunny had a proportionately large, mostly dark brown head, highlighted with splashes of white. She had long brown ears and huge brown eyes. Her chubby body was covered with the richest, thickest, softest fur, mostly white with dark brown patches.

Her ears perked up and stood tall when she was curious or otherwise interested in what was going on around her. But when she was afraid, the ears were pressed back against the top of her head, as she tried to make herself appear small. I loved seeing her perked-up ears. Perky ears generally indicated the bunny was happy.

Since she was a female rex, she had a large dewlap, a soft flap of fatty tissue, folded under the front of her neck. If she lost weight, the dewlap lost size; if she gained weight, the dewlap became more prominent. I read that the dewlap was an adaptation of the female rabbit's body to preserve extra calories in times of low food supply, probably to help feed any young bunnies in her care.

I had had pet cats and dogs throughout my life, but I had never owned a bunny before, so I often wondered if I were doing the right things to care for my bunny. I bought three or four books on rabbit care and read them cover-to-cover several times over the next few years. What could I do to give her a good life?

Bunnies are intelligent and need stimulation. I am like that, too. I felt sad whenever Miss Giggles seemed bored. I showered her with toys, things to explore and throw around. Cardboard toilet paper rolls, crumpled up newspapers, pieces of wood to chew, boxes to investigate... These filled her play area.

No cage seemed large enough. Many pet rabbits are "house rabbits," with free access to the house. I have a clutter problem, plus lots of electrical cords, so I was hesitant to give Miss Giggles free rein of the house. She occasionally escaped from the master bathroom, however, and hid out under my bed for a while. If I left her cage open, with food available, she would eventually hop back into the cage, and I could capture her again.

If confined to her cage and unhappy with its decor, Miss Giggles would rearrange the items inside the cage to suit her fancy. She might pull the litter box to the other end of the cage, tear up some newspaper    left in the cage for bedding, or dump out her feed bowl to access pieces of food that she couldn't reach.

Miss Giggles' cage generally resided in my kitchen during warmer weather, where I could easily pull it out onto the balcony to clean it. In fact, I often let her romp on the balcony during warm weather. She enjoyed the fresh air and the ability to watch my wooded backyard from the safety of the balcony. One of the cats would join her on the balcony to watch the world go by. Both often napped there for hours at a time.

During cold weather, the cage generally resided in my master bathroom, where the large bathtub allowed me to clean the cage when needed.

I often had two cages going for Miss Giggles at one time -- her original small cage would be on one level of my home, and the larger cage on another. That way, I could carry her around with me when I wanted to cuddle her, and then drop her into a place of safety if I needed to work or answer the phone.

I experimented with using small fenced-in areas in my kitchen or basement, to give Miss Giggles new places to explore, where she could interact with my two cats and me. The cats would groom her or nuzzle her -- and plucky Miss Giggles would sniff and nuzzles them back. She weighed about seven pounds, and Cally and Peachie weighed about 10 and 12 pounds, respectively. Both cats were protective of her, even though they hissed and boxed almost hourly with each other.

Within a few months of assuming Miss Giggle's care, I had purchased a wooden hutch and fenced-in run for her. I kept this on my balcony for the first two years and eventually moved it down to ground level. The hutch gave her some shelter in case it grew cold or rainy during the day, and the covered run gave her some protection against predators. I worried about hawks, owls, and roving cats. I felt I could trust my cats with her care, but I worried about some of the neighbour cats.

Over time, I allowed the rabbit more freedom. I didn't always make her get back inside the closed pen or cage at night. The balcony seemed fairly safe. When I went out to tuck her in for the night, she often led me on a grand chase around the balcony. She didn't want to be penned in. So I made sure she had a number of hide boxes to jump into, if faced with danger, and I tried to camouflage her resting places, so that she would be more difficult to see from the air.

I covered a bench on the balcony with a white plastic tablecloth to give Miss Giggles some shade and wind and rain protection. This worked well for a while. However, one night, near midnight, I discovered that the wind had blown the tablecloth off the bench, and the bored rabbit had chewed it to bits. Bunny herself was barely alive. Worried sick, I tucked her into a carrier and transported her to an all-night vet clinic that cares for rabbits. She felt horribly light -- just a wisp of her normal self. She was listless, and I knew she was near death.

The veterinarian told me that Miss Giggles had an intestinal blockage. It may have been caused by the plastic tablecloth or it may have been caused by eating too many sweet things, like carrots. Rabbits, it turns out, have delicate stomachs, like horses, and cannot handle too many sweet vegetables or fruits at one time. They get colic, and the stomach pain is horrendous. The woman attached Miss Giggles to an IV and started her on a regime of seven different drugs. I left her at the clinic and went home for the night.

The next day, there was no change in Miss Giggles' status. She was drinking some but not peeing or pooping. When I visited Miss Giggles at the vet clinic the next afternoon, I held her close and willed her well. The vet said the bunny needed to be able to pee and poop to get well. Since the bunny still seemed so weak and frail, I wondered aloud to the vet if I should have her euthanized. No, she said, give her at least until morning. Luckily, by the next morning Miss Giggles was again peeing, and she was pooping within another day.

After Miss Giggles graduated from the IV,  I was able to take her home. This was about three days after I first found her in distress. I was shocked, however, to get her home and realize that she was now turning her foot under and walking on the knuckle where the IV had been attached. Worried, I took her back to the vet. What now?

The tight IV attachment had caused nerve damage to Miss Giggles' foot. The vet warned me that her foot might not recover. After the vet splinted the foot, I spent the next several weeks trying to keep the splint on the foot to allow it to heal. Without the splint, the rabbit would chew and lick her injured foot constantly. She had already rubbed it foot raw. Her foot was bald, red, and irritated -- an ugly sight and probably very painful.

Miss Giggles was still getting meds for the intestinal blockage. Together we spent a lot of time together on the balcony over the next few weeks as I nursed her back to health. Whenever I held her close, she gave me her sweet little bunny kisses. I had grown to love her, and she seemed to reciprocate my love.

Miss Giggles suffered nerve damage from the overly tight attachment of her IV line after the tablecloth incident, so the vet splinted her foot to keep her from chewing on the injured foot.

Miss Giggles with her splinted foot.

To Be Continued...

The Beginning of a Blessing

Miss Giggles, a dwarf rex rabbit

Many creatures, great and small, change our lives, adding or subtracting value and meaning. This is an essay, in three instalments, about how a small bunny changed my life.

I lived bunny-less for the first 54 years of my life, and then a flurry of things happened -- my husband of 25 years left me for a young co-worker, I moved to Guelph, On, and two strangers at a gas station gave me a bunny.

My first bunny was not Miss Giggles. Miss Giggles was my second bunny. I accepted the first bunny from a distraught young couple at a service station on the evening of my move to Guelph. The young man told me that they had just spent hours in the Emergency Room at Guelph General Hospital and had learned that his wife was both pregnant and allergic to their new bunny. Would I give her a home?

It was January, cold, and snowy, and I felt pity on the poor little creature huddled in the cardboard box. My motherly instincts kicked in. "Sure," I said.

Not knowing a thing about bunnies, I took the young rabbit home and then set about creating a home for her. I bought a cage, food, litter, litter box, and a book on rabbits. Within a few days, I was sure I was allergic to the little creature. My asthma and allergies had flared up. So I reluctantly bestowed my new bunny on my university-aged daughter and her roommates, who were living in a flat near the university. They welcomed her, and kept her in a common area in the middle of the flat.

Sadly, that bunny didn't last long. It turned out that this young bunny, still an adolescent, was pregnant. She was too young to be pregnant, and the poor thing died giving birth. After a short grieving period, the girls decided to adopt a second bunny, Miss Giggles, from the Guelph Humane Society.

Miss Giggles, a dwarf rex rabbit, was white with a brown head and ears and brown spots on her back. Her fur was luxurious -- softer than any animal I had ever handled. She was already an adult when the girls adopted her, and she had lived at the Humane Society for a number of months before her adoption.

Miss Giggles remained the property of the four girls until they graduated from university. My daughter then moved the bunny with her to her new apartment in Guelph. But about a year later, my daughter decided to move to a small apartment in Toronto. She didn't have room for the bunny and it no longer fit into her lifestyle, which involved some work-related travel.

By this time, I had bunny-sat Miss Giggles on several occasions and had grown very fond of this sweet little thing. She was curious, intelligent, and social. If I left her outside her cage for a while, she would find her way back into it herself. When I held her on my chest, she cuddled close and gave me sweet little bunny kisses -- small, warm licks -- to my neck.

I immediately had Miss Giggles neutered. Neutering helps female bunnies live longer and avoid both uterine cancer and baby bunnies. Neutering can also minimize the odor of the rabbit's litter box and cage. Since rabbits are herbivores, their round, dry poo pellets have no discernible smell, but their urine smells if left in the litter box for several days. Unneutered male rabbits are also known to mark their territory.

In short order, my privileged bunny had two cages (one small and one large), a hutch and run for outdoors, numerous hide boxes, several litter boxes, a plethora of toys and food and water dishes. I was licking my wounds from my failed 25-year marriage, and my cats and bunny helped lick my injured soul. They loved me uncritically and bestowed their affection generously. Yes, I was becoming a crazy old cat and bunny lady.

The two cats hated each other, but if I cuddled with the bunny on the sofa, the other two would join me, purring contentedly by our side.

To be continued...