Badger

[Flashy]

To my Special Guy,

So much to say, but not enough words to actually convey what I truly feel.

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To start at the beginning I need to go back to before I’d even met you; to February 2007. We’d lost two bunnies in very quick succession; Tubby and Boof. I was still intent on breeding and when Boof died I contacted the lady I bought The Dopeys from to see if she had a bunny who would make good babies with Sky. She came up with Sandy. I decided I wasn’t ready for another bunny and put it off.

Then, on the 15[sup]th[/sup] March 2007 we lost Moon and I recontacted the lady. Moon died on the Thursday and I went to collect Sandy on the Monday, and there your story starts.

Shelley had shown us around her girls shed and I’d put Sandy in her carry case, and then she showed us around her boys shed. On the left, at eye height was a very, teeny, tiny blue otter buck. One ‘hole’ down and one along was this crazy little black and white bunny bouncing from side to side. She said his name was Badger. She showed us the rest of the shed and this funny little bunny kept on bouncing. My eyes kept being drawn back to this gorgeous bundle of energy and we laughed at his antics. Shelley opened his cage and promptly, this crazy loon, sprayed everywhere; all over Shelley’s arm.

I fell for this bunny straight away but knew that he couldn’t come home with me because Sandy was.

Well this little bunny called Badger had other ideas. YOU had other ideas, the same as you always did.

I really felt at that point that you were a gift sent from Moon- a gift to help me heal.

Later that evening, Monday the 19[sup]th[/sup] March 2007, Shelley called me up to tell me that she was planning to sell you and wanted to know if I wanted you. I checked with mum but my heart was screaming ‘yes’. Thankfully, mum had fallen for you as much as I had and said yes. We collected you Friday the 23[sup]rd[/sup] March 2007- you were five months and one day old.

Really, it was a sign of things to come, but on the way home your nose started to run. As normal, when you came to ours, you went into quarantine and were in the porch with Sandy. Sandy was in the bottom hutch and you were in the top. Big mistake!

From day one you decided I was your friend. Every single time I went near you, you would spray me, but because you were in the top hutch you used to get my eyes and my hair. I used to have to wash my hair like three or four times a day. We started to experiment- swimming goggles, scream mask (giving me one of the funniest memories ever with Adam- my brother, and making him scream like a girl in genuine fright), bin bags, anything and everything we could think of. You never, not once, sprayed anyone else, and they could happily stroke you, but not me. I was yours and that was all there was to it.

Your runny nose went away when you were not travelling and so, after 4 weeks, you moved outside and came out of quarantine. There you earned the nickname ‘Badger Waggle’ because you still just bounced about from side to side. Wherever you were, if we were near, you were bouncing.

You stopped bouncing after your first VHD jab though when a large amount of your fur fell out from your back and sides. It was that that prompted me to seek out another vet. Thank goodness you did! They saved your life regularly in the following years.

You still sprayed, but thankfully not in my eyes because you weren’t at eye height anymore. We intended to breed from you, but then Sandy produced 7 beautiful babies so there was no room. You and Cloud were the first ever bunnies I got neutered.

You were both hilarious. Cloud was so, so angry with me and with everything. He trashed everything, and stomped about and was a right turd (more so than normal). My Badger Waggle lost his Waggle! You felt so, so sorry for yourself and developed a walk where you walked on your back tiptoes. We laughed a lot at you but also felt sorry for you. The very day you were neutered was the first ever time you licked me. You were my bun and you licked me, and it was awesome!

You were still living outside but you came in a lot for runs around. Your binkies were incredible! You were incredibly cute, and as soon as I was able, I moved you into my room.

You were such a pleasure unless you were on my bed, or I was on the laptop. Invariably, if I was on the laptop, you would come and sit in between me and my laptop and wee. You were an attention seeking turdy brain. What I loved best was when it was safe to let you on my bed and I would lie in bed going to sleep and you would come and curl yourself around my head and go to sleep too. I loved the way you would follow me around, unless I was going down the stairs because you couldn’t do those, so would just peer at me from the top. I loved sitting in the living room and hearing the ‘doofdoofdoofdoofdoofdoofdoof’ on the landing and someone would say ‘whose out’ and the answer would always be you. You were a tiny bunny but you sounded like a herd of elephants all by yourself.

You were such a foody bunny, and would eat and try everything. After you moved inside you used to get dry skin when moulting and the only thing you wouldn’t eat was sunflower seeds to try and improve your skin- with those you took hold of them, and then chewed, and then spat them out, and then, in a sort of Badger way, you glared at me.

You gained a good few more nicknames over the following years living in my room- Badger Fadger, Badge, Badgereeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee, Badgerigar, Badgereenerie, Magic Badger, Instant Badger, and many more. You also made some other close friends, especially my dad. He loved you deeply because you responded to him, so he kept responding back. You had him wrapped around your little paw.

Essentially though, you were my rabbit. Even our vet noticed that because when you went to the vets, he listened to your heart rate and counted it, and then I put my hands on you to hold you still and my our vet said your heart rate dropped noticeably. That told me there and then how important it was to you for me to touch you whenever you were stressed.

When I wrote an article for RO you were in many of the pictures because of the bond we had. http://www.rabbitsonline.net/view_topic.php?id=33921&forum_id=48

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By some strange occurrences a lovely lady bunny came into my home on 9[sup]th[/sup] November 2009; Rosie. I did a bunny date with you and her to see if you and her may bond. You’d never known another bunny, so I didn’t quite know what you would make of her. It was all good really. She had known other bunnies and she could guide you. I started bonding the next day.

Rosie was a very troubled rabbit, having had a difficult past and was very physically damaged. She would never let you sleep. Whenever you started to sleep, she would wake you up and make you run around, so we slowed the bonding down because, obviously, you needed to sleep sometimes. We thought that in her past maybe she had lived with an ill rabbit, or lived with a dead animal, one who wouldn’t wake. Hindsight, again, tells us that likely she knew something that we didn’t know.

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You were bonded and I wondered whether you would change and be less people orientated. You didn’t. You were one of those incredibly special bunnies who doesn’t. You were just as interested in us as before and you dragged Rosie along with you. You shared and taught her a lot and made her life happier for it. Her binkies outranked yours any day! You still came bounding, still wanted strokes and love, still just wanted us- me.

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Shortly after you were bonded you started to cough, only in your sleep, and so you went for your third dental. As normal, you bounced back quickly. Three weeks later you started to tilt your head back while you were breathing and you still were coughing. Off to the vets we went again. They couldn’t find anything untoward, but gave you some Septrin, which you took great delight in eating (like with everything else). That sorted you out, but when you came off it, your breathing got worse again. Another round of Septrin didn’t help, and we ended up at the Emergency vets because you were mouth breathing. We realised at that point that travelling was not good for you. We started with Septrin again, and nebulised F10SC and you were also on Metacam, but you just kept getting worse. I took you to see a different vet (by accident, more than by design) and he clearly didn’t know and wasn’t interested, but he did make the referral that we needed.

We took the risk the next day- the 9[sup]th[/sup] April 2010, and we travelled you and Rosie-Po 45 mins to the vets and back again. She was excellent and you went onto a larger dose of Metacam and Zithromax and also Corvental. She diagnosed you with ‘larygeal issues’, and what those were, we decided not to investigate because you were a small bunny and it would be more for our interest than because we could do anything different to help you.

I bought a weather station and monitored your symptoms against the humidity and temperature. We did ok and you were stable, and then on May 30[sup]th[/sup] you just went downhill so drastically, but Rosie was also ill and I suspect you were struggling with her being ill.

You both went to the vets. We discussed what the options were for you and we discussed putting you to sleep then, but your wonderful vet suggested trying steroids to see if that would help, and giving you oxygen therapy. Rosie had a dental the next day, and by some fate, you were much improved, so you came home. I was told that what happened next would depend on how you held your own within the next 24 hours off the oxygen. I took 200 photos of you and Rosie the night you came home because not only was I facing you, we had found out by fluke when Rosie had her spine x-rayed, that Rosie had one calcified kidney and that her symptoms were not because she was miserable because of her teeth, it was related to her kidneys packing up (which was later confirmed by a blood test).

The pair of you showed huge strength. Thankfully, the steroids helped you, but Rosie lost her battle on the 24[sup]th[/sup] June 2010. As sad as this is, I’m thankful Rosie was ready first because I knew you were both incredibly sick but knew both of your personalities. You would cope fine without Rosie, but she would not cope without you. I knew that if you were ready to go first, it would be fairest and best for Rosie to go too. Rosie left first and you were fine. You didn’t change one iota.

I now believe that Rosie came into our home for you. To help you. When she arrived nothing made any sense but she saw you through so much and stood by your side enabling you. I owe her so much for that. She helped you in a way I couldn’t.

You carried on and it was ace. Still taking your meds from a syringe, still bounding about, still doing good. We had our wobbles, like when you couldn’t cope with being handled, or when you needed a dental, but we did ok.

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Then, on the 21[sup]st[/sup] December 2010, we once again faced losing you. Something caused you to struggle and I couldn’t bring it back, so I called the emergency vet and thankfully it was your awesome vet, and once again we discussed would it be better to put you to sleep, or to give you a chance with oxygen therapy. We gave you an hour to see if it helped. Somehow, it did.

You just had this incredible zest for life. This thirst for living. Just this completely youthful attitude. You wanted to live. You needed to live. Whilst you wanted to live, I fought with you. I advocated for you. Thought what YOU would want. The strength you had to carry on living was amazing. People told me that you were alive because of the care I gave you. I always disagreed. You were alive because YOU wanted to be.

I started a ‘Happy Times Diary’ because I knew how important that might be. There are many happy memories in it.

On the 1[sup]st[/sup] March you needed an emergency dental and after struggled to recover. You ended up with cecal dysbiosis and lost a lot of weight. One week and one day later you had given up. You’d had enough. Dad found you limp, cold and generally unresponsive, and I brought you downstairs. Your eyes said you had had enough but I wanted to give you that chance and offered you different foods and warmth and stroked you.

I made the call to take you in because enough was enough, and then gathered all the stuff I needed. Somewhere, from inside, you changed your mind. You started to look alert, and you nibbled some dandelion leaf. So called the vet again, and changed our minds. You bounced back well that night from whatever that was and carried on, but you lost more weight. So we went back to the vets. Our vet said that your liver was enlarged and we knew how emaciated you were. He diagnosed liver failure due to the steroids you had been on. My suspicion was you would die within a week and told my brother to say good bye to you before he went back to uni- which he did.

You were still amazing. You were still completely just Badger. Still nosey, still peering at the top of the stairs, still bounding for food, still inquisitive. You had less stamina, but you were so skinny, that’s to be expected.

You were full of life.

You amazing us all and outlived that week, going from strength to strength. We knew you didn’t have long because your liver was failing but you were slowly gaining weight and had had no minging dysbiosy poo for about two weeks.

Then I wrecked it. I could hear Wish getting referred aggression to Flame and Autumn about you. 12.37am, 15[sup]th[/sup] April 2011- The day my life changed forever. So I moved the big board. You were standing by the door and I picked up the board, I slowly moved it across the room. I put one end down carefully, and was moving the other end. The board slipped from my hands with about a foot left. I saw your body, but couldn’t see your head and moved the board so quickly. I shouted for help and woke everyone up. You span round in a circle on your side. No scream. I knew I needed to keep you still and held your back end and around your head and then screamed for some help from anyone. You were already gone then though, I think. You died in probably less than ten seconds and you were not suffering. It was quicker than when Rosie was put to sleep, and also when Tilly was put to sleep.

Saying that, I couldn’t rationalise that. I killed my bunny. I killed one of the best friends I ever had. MY fault and my error snuffed out your life. Your need for living and your zest for life were gone. And it was MY fault. Whether people class it as an accident or not, it doesn’t matter because you’re still dead, still gone, and never coming back, and that was because of my hands.

I’ve never known despair like I knew that nightmare. Pacing, crying, collapsing, desperate to make it stop. Make my head stop. Every time I closed my eyes I flashed back. You had blood come out your nose when you were dead. You were wrapped in a jacket of mine, with a carebear, and we shared the settee. We shared a fleecey I stroked you. You still felt like Badger. When Flash died and went stiff he didn’t feel like Flash, but you felt like Badger.

So now you’re gone. You’re not here. My world is pretty empty. I’m one best friend down. There will never be a peering face at me, or a little shadow wherever I go, or a ‘nudge nudge’ on my ankles to get my attention. Never again will I feel your ears, your nose, your body.

Your death was what I wanted for you, it was non suffering, you didn’t have the stress of a journey you couldn’t cope with, it was at home, you were happy. BUT, for me, Badger, this is horrific. I know you won’t blame me, or hate me, but I blame me and hate me. I can never change it and never bring you back.

I spent the past 18 months doing everything in my power to help you live, because you wanted to, and in the end it wasn’t your illness that killed you, it was me; the person who is supposed to protect you and help you, and I didn’t.

I’m so deeply sorry for that Badger. I hope you know how much you were loved by me. How deeply you were loved. How special you were. How much of a hole you will leave.

I Hope you know how much you mean to me.

I don’t know where you are Badger, but I can feel it. I can feel you. Never, EVER before, have I felt such life in my heart, from a lost bunny. That life, that energy is somewhere.

I just hope, wherever you are, you’re ok.

I owe you, my special little friend. I’m going to miss you forever, and pay for this forever, but inside, I hope you’re ok. I’ll see you soon Badger. When ‘soon’ will be, I don’t know. But I WILL see you again. I hope you’ve found Rosie now, and that she too is healed. I hope you get the happy time you deserve.

I don’t feel this, any of this that I have written, does you justice. I can’t communicate how I feel, or how amazing you were or any of it. I loved it when people complimented you on your personality, or your gorgeous face, or how friendly you were. Heck, Polly even came down from Scotland to where I live to get some Badger relatives (she failed, but she tried).

Above all though, more than anything, I’m so sorry I let you down. My heart aches and I’m flashbacking to it all. Badger, please know, if I could change it, I would. I would give anything.

I love you as much as you could ever imagine, my Badger Fadger,

I love you and I'll miss you forever

All my Love,

Tracy

[align=center]Binky Free Badger
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[align=center] 22[sup]nd[/sup] October 2006 – 15[sup]th[/sup] April 2011
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[Elf Mommy]

What a special love. I'm so sorry for your loss. What wonderful memories you have been able to share with us. Thank you for that.

 

[SOOOSKA]

OH Flashy I'm in tears reading yor Beautiful Tribute.

You are such a wonderful Young Lady. My one wish is to meet you one day. If people treated other people they way you treated your bunnies this earth would be a much better place.

I really miss you on RO.

Binky Free at the Rainbow Bridge :rainbow:Badger.

Hugs

Susan:bunnyangel2:

 

[Nancy McClelland]

Thanks for sharing the wonderful stories and memories with us. We've all had to say goodbye, and there's never a good circumstance. Good bye little man and binky free--you're loved and greatly missed.

 

[Maureen Las]

I am so sorry Tracy that this happened.

RIP Badger you were REALLY REALLY loved !


When I lived in Chicago in the 90's I had 4 guinea pigs . I used to put newspapers down in my bathroom and allow them to run around the bathroom all day for exercise. They used to get under the newspapers sometimes to sleep and hide and everytimeI stepped into the bathroom I KNEW that I had to be careful.

One day I was really upset and distracted and I stepped into the bathroom and Lucy was right under my foot under the newspaper. I immediately looked at her . She stood dazed for a moment and then just died. I think that I had broken her neck .
I still had her parents Ullysses and Sabrina and her sister Felicity but little Lucy was gone... and she was a young girl

I took this really really hard and think about it now years and years later; it always bothered me that I endedthe life of such a bubbly little piggy. I really really loved her
My heart is with you Tracy and I also miss you on the forum ...

All I can say is try to forgive yourself ;
you wouldn't feel so much pain if he hadn't mattered as much as he did


:feelbetter::hug:


Maureen

 

[Flashy]

Thanks guys.

 

[JadeIcing]

I want to share this with you. I just bought it for Dallas' scrapbook. This is one of those deaths that just shocks me.

 

[JimD]

I'm so sorry Tracy



Binky free little guy.
We'll see you on the other side

ray::rainbow:

 

[Bluesmaven]

what a great bunny! So sorry for your loss I know it's great.

 

[EileenH]

I am so sorry; there aren't any words I can think of other than to just say you're in my thoughts....

 

[Nela]

I'm so very sorry Tracy. I just have no words... I have tears. Know that I share them with you.

 

[Flashy]

Thanks everyone. He was super special and amazing. He has left a large, Badger shaped hole.

Odd thing to smile and wink about though.:confused2:

I'm so sorry Tracy

 

[JimD]

Flashy wrote:

Odd thing to smile and wink about though.:confused2:

I'm so sorry Tracy

Sorry 'bout that. Must have been a slip of the click.
I meant to click on the sad face next to it.

 

[Flashy]

That makes more sense. It confused my poor brain. No worries Thanks for clarifying.

 

[jcl_24]

A bunny with so much life and love in his spirit will know all you want him to know and continue to love you Tracy.

Binky free Badger knowing you will never be forgotten.

Jo xx

 

[Byfuzzerabbit]

I should really stop reading these at school. Sorry for your loss.