Doc & Dora to Doc & Aurora

[Chrisdoc]

I do know how you feel Lyndy. When two buns start fighting it´s not a good thing to see. When my two were at they worst, they used to sink teeth into butts and they´d be rolling on the floor in like they were sewn together and I had to separate. Never any blood that I saw but they both had scabs and scars under the fur and I hated how they would go for each other. I took nearly 7 months the last time but I knew they´d been together before and these two little guys couldn´t live without each other so I knew eventually, they´d figure it out. In your case, I can understand why you want to give up especially if poor Doc keeps coming off the worse and he´s actually bloodied and injured. I did say he always reminds me of Snowy and I´d be really upset if my poor Snowy´s little white fur was streaked with red.

So, whatever you decide, we´ll be with you and you never know, if you do keep them both separately, at some point in the future when the memories of this have faded, you may want to have another go.

Glad to hear your music is going well, would love to hear more about what you´re doing right now as well.

 

[lyndym]

The things I do for my rabbits, you guys. I stayed up fairly late because I was worried about Doc, only to get up early to call the vet right when they opened. (Not a morning person over here!) The only appointment was at 5, which I took, but MAN is traffic going to be completely terrible going both ways. Nothing is worse than LA during rush hour. Anything for my little guy, who is actually doing fine. All habits are still normal, and he's cleaned most of the blood off his face, so I can tell it hasn't bled any more. I'm pretty sure the vet will tell me all is fine and might at the most offer me precautionary antibiotics to ease my mind, but I was going to take him for a regular check up soon anyway. Good thing I happen to have the day off!


Does anyone have much experience with adding a third rabbit to help a bonding situation? I would not do this immediately, just something I've read about in all my research. I really don't see any other option at this point as I have literally tried everything. Chris, I know you said maybe they'll forget this in time and can possibly start with a cleaner slate down the road, but I had quite a long period of no dating time for them in the spring going into the summer. That did help, and we did get to prolonged dates, but there'd always be a little nipping that I'd have to verbally stop, which would escalate slowly over a few days until they got fed up with each other and would try to fight. Anyway, I'd probably go back to the shelter I got Rory from in search of this hypothetical third bun because they know my situation and I would have to go into getting a third bun with the mindset that if it did not 100% help, the third bun must go back. I don't mind whether it's two or three rabbits, so long as they share a living area and I don't have to worry about play times (switching, closely monitoring them all stressed out, etc). This is not an option I'm in love with right now, since it's entirely possible it wouldn't work and I'd end up with two separate rabbits in the end anyway, and a third bun would up my rabbit budget a whole other rabbit's worth of money! Just things to think about..

 

[lyndym]

Well, Doc's trip to the vet went well, except for all the traffic I had to battle. Half hour visit door-to-door was almost two and a half hours!! He got shots of both metacam and baytril right away to start antibiotics and pain/swelling treatment, and I took home some oral versions of the same meds to start him on tomorrow for the next several days. Luckily there was no punctures in his lip, but the vet was concerned upon first glance. They also shaved an area on his side and put some topical antibiotic on it, so I can monitor the huge bite he sustained.

I took a couple pictures of his injuries and will post them far below, so scroll down to the bottom of the post if you don't wish to see anything graphic. It's not as bad as that disclaimer makes it sound, but just in case anyone is squeamish. I don't like looking at pictures like that myself, but seeing a few photos of more serious injuries last night that still didn't require sutures made me feel confident in waiting until today to bring Doc in. Maybe by seeing his injuries as a reference can help one of you someday, though heaven forbid anyone's bun get hurt!






























The bite on his lip. Looks so much better after he groomed the blood off, doesn't look nearly as bad as last night! But as you can see, there's that curved line right through the middle of his patch of whiskers. If you part the fur a bit, you can see the bite. Thankfully there's no puncture and no sutures were needed, though it was a bit swollen earlier.


Wound from bite/fur pull. It might look worse than it is due to the shave job, but still one of the nastier injuries I've seen on either Doc or Rory, or on Dora from when she and Doc were going through bonding. Blood never seeped through his fur, so it wasn't a particularly deep wound, but the fur was damp over that injury site after the fight last night. I don't think from him licking it, I noticed it straight after, maybe from plasma or something? Like when we humans scrape a thin layer of skin and it doesn't bleed, but there's a clear-yellowish liquid that begins to cover the area.

Also, GAH, why is photobucket so dumb and making these kind of tiny?? I know you can click them and make them bigger, but that's a pain. I don't want to deal with it now, it's not like I'm posting lovely glamor shots of the buns, but what gives?





























Anyway, Doc is my little trooper! The vet was surprised when I told him Doc pretty much went straight back to his food soon after the big fight. That's my boy, always thinking with his tummy. It was so cute at the vet - Doc was waiting on the exam table as we talked and stuff, and he kept turning to face me and would stand up on his hind feet and lean up to put his front paws on my chest, like, "Mom, I'm a little nervous and I know you're worried, but I love you and I'm okay!" He's still eating fine tonight, and I just gave him a little cuddle on the couch, but don't want to disturb him much in case he is uncomfortable. I'm still a little mad at Rory, who didn't seem bothered at all that her neighboring bun left the house for an extended time today. I've been missing Dora a lot - she and Doc were such a great couple.

 

[lyndym]

Hi guys, it's been awhile.. After speaking with the lady who runs my shelter and considering my options for weeks.. I decided to exchange Rory rather than try to add a third to the mix. I know it was best for her and Doc - I know Doc does better with a friend, while Rory displays behavior that might make her better as a single lady. I know that I would be extremely nervous trying any other bonding tactics with them, and I don't know if I'd ever feel comfortable leaving them alone together even if a third seemed to help. As for myself, I was not happy with two separate buns, and my budget is comfortable with two and might become strained at three.

So yesterday I bit the bullet and brought Rory in and came home with a new agouti girl. Her name is Roxanne, though I'm thinking of changing it because I'd end up calling her "Roxy," which is close to "Rory." She is very sweet, and when I visited her pen before her date with Doc, she put her head down for pets right away. Apparently she's been in the shelter for a year or so, and this past summer she bonded herself with a boy flemmy by hopping right over into his pen! He passed a couple weeks back, so we thought she might take to Doc quickly. They had a great date at the shelter, and she even groomed him! I cried happy tears for them both. The shelter was celebrating its one year anniversary, so someone was there taking pictures with a nice camera, and they documented the first date quite well for me! She's going to email me the photos, and put them on the website! She also loved Doc's full name (Dr. Hoppenheimer). And thus Doc gets his 15 minutes of fame. They lady as well as other people visiting the shelter were very understanding of my situation and reassured me that I was doing the right thing, but it was definitely a tearful time when I had to leave little Rory. She seemed to settle in quickly, used her new litter box right away and marked all the toys in the pen. She made sure to give the neighboring rabbits disgruntled charges while they were all curious checking her out, affirming my thoughts that she just wants to be a solo bun! Everyone commented on how healthy she looked, which made me feel like a good bunny mom. Hahaha.

New Girl is settling in just fine. She gets a little nervous at some things, but nothing like Rory. She has good litter box habits, and she and Doc have had two dates since we got back, one 20 mins and one about 40 mins, and they both went well. She groomed him during our last date, Doc, as usual, continues to be the needy one.

I just thought I'd give you all an update on everything. I'll try to post more with pictures and everything, but I'm not sure if I'll start anew since Rory isn't in our home anymore or what.

 

[Chrisdoc]

Lyndy, sorry things didn´t work out with Rory but if Doc wasn´t happy and things weren´t working out then you did the right thing, I´m sure she´ll be taken on by someone else fairly quickly, she was such a pretty girl.

welcome to your new girl, looks as though she´s settling in and getting on with Doc, can´t wait to see the pics. I hope you do continue to come on here and let us know what´s going on with the buns and with you.

Hope things are well with you on all fronts and look forward to an update on your Doc and his new Mrs.

 

[Azerane]

I sorry to hear that it didn't work out with Rory, I really think you did everything you could and in the end, made a decision that was both best for Doc and Rory, and hopefully Roxanne too if she bonds with Doc. Best of luck with the new pairing, would be lovely to see pics with them.

 

[Ilovemyrabbit]

I'm so sorry you had to re-home Rory but it sounds like it was for the best. I'm sure Rory will get adopted quickly since she's a very pretty girl. The new bunny sounds very sweet. By the sounds of it they will bond quickly. I'd love to see some pictures of the pair.

 

[lyndym]

Hi guys! Sorry I've been so lazy with updating this thing. It's definitely been a whole roller coaster type of situation, what with having to exchange little Rory, but I'm doing better with the decision.

I settled on a name for my new girl - Beatrix. Like Beatrix Potter, she looks just like Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail, and Peter! I call her Trix or Trixy for short.

UGH I tried to add pictures, but Photobucket is being a turd.

She and Doc are doing pretty well together. They nip occasionally, I don't really know what to make of that, but definitely better than the situation with Rory overall. Generally I see Trix wanting to get groomed by Doc and becoming impatient and resorting to nipping, which eventually upsets him. When he responds, she typically backs off. Sometimes I let this happen in order to allow them to sort it out on their own, but if it looks like it'll continue, I step in. As far as dates go, we usually spend 60-90 minutes at a time in their ex-pen or in my bathroom. Last night we went the longest, in the pen for about two and a half hours. I say "we," but I mean just the buns are in the pen, I finally feel comfortable observing from the couch! I tried introducing a play box the other night in the bathroom, that was a no-go for sure. So they mainly spend time in an empty pen, which seems really boring to me, but they got really territorial over that box. Last night I introduced litter boxes. I decided to put them right next to each other, so they'd be in the same area but could choose to be in separate boxes. After encouragement from me, they snuggled for some time together in one box, but were still prone to a little nipping.

Some of you saw my post about Trixy's hay consumption. She's making me nervous mostly because it was right before last Thanksgiving that Dora started showing symptoms of stasis. I almost feel like I should just take her in to the vet, but I have spent so much on the vet this year already, what with Doc getting beat up by Rory and Rory displaying early signs of head tilt that turned out to be my paranoia and absolutely nothing wrong with her health. On occasion Trixy will stretch out her tummy on the floor much like Dora would to relieve gas and whatnot, but nothing close to how often Dora would.

Life-wise for me, I am so busy! The past couple of months I have been playing so many gigs around town, which is great, but so much driving and so much music in addition to what I should be working on personally! My savings account is a little happier though. I also had a birthday recently, and it was the day of a big concert at school that I played on. I planned to go out with friends following the concert, and my best friend at school, Alex, called Luke to have him surprise me at the restaurant. I thought he was coming to visit the following evening, but he ended up there on my birthday!

Hope all is well with everyone and everybun! Any fun Thanksgiving plans?

 

[lyndym]

And of course right after writing that last update, I cleaned the buns' boxes and put in fresh hay, and Trix is sitting in there eating right now.

 

[JBun]

Haha, I'm sure you're glad she's proving you wrong

It sounds like the two of them are making some progress in bonding. It will probably just take a little time for them to sort their relationship out and figure out who's in charge. Hopefully not too long. Have my fingers crossed for those two!

I bet that was a nice birthday surprise. I hope you all had a nice time together.

 

[Chrisdoc]

Sounds like you had a great birthday and a wonderful surprise as well.

Good to hear little Trixie is now eating her hay, I always worry about mine eating hay but they seem to love the new stuff I´ve bought with extras, a bit more expensive but well worth it.

Hope you get photobucket sorted, I hate it but can´t wait to see pics of Trixie.