Thursday 31 December 2015

Dark Whispers


"Don't look now but that strange woman is back again. If she's got the snack barrow, you dash for the door and I'll go for the carrots."

Wednesday 30 December 2015

Finding Mr T

"Ah, you found me. And I even put this nettle leaf on my head as camouflage..." 

Tuesday 29 December 2015

Go Go Gadget Romance


Love is back in the air at the Rescue with the arrival of four single boys that have been trying their luck with the ladies. First of the boys on a date was Gadget, whose attempts at courting the focus of his affection involved a lot of nonchalant hopping around the enclosure, apparent teleportation and slowly creeping up on her when she least expected it. Somehow this worked and since his new wife is an owner's rabbit, his charm has also won himself a new home at the beginning of next year. Well done little man.

"So you see, next time you want to court a lady, just appear out of nowhere and sniff her bottom. She won't be able to resist, take it from me."


Monday 28 December 2015

The Future is Neon Bright


We have one bunny at the rescue right now who, after a bit of a rough time in the past, is currently quite a lucky boy. One of our adoptees has graciously sponsored Neon to live in a large aviary, which is normally reserved for pairs as they naturally require more room. Now all we need to do is convince him to share it with somebody...


Saturday 26 December 2015

Sunny Reviews


"Oh yes, I absolutely love my new Moult and Bolt box. It's great to hide in and jump on and I can rub my cheeks all over it, what's not to love ab- wait..."

"What do you mean I'm not getting paid for this?!"

Friday 25 December 2015

Merry Xmas 2015!



A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year from myself, Pandora and Mattie and also from the Rabbit Residence Rescue.

We wish you all the best for 2016 and a big thank you to everyone who has supported us, physically, emotionally or financially, over the past year. We cannot tell you enough how much you all mean to us and if the rabbits could thank you themselves, they would probably choose to demand carrots anyway.

Enjoy!

Thursday 24 December 2015

Raina on Your Parade


"Hello!"

Wednesday 23 December 2015

Bad Hair Day


Long Haired Bunny 101 - when you've got a lovely warm clean house to retreat to, don't sit out in the rain...


Tuesday 22 December 2015

DIY Delight


While most of the staff and volunteers were at a Christmas lunch last Saturday, two nice young men were getting busy down at the rescue site, working all day on a couple of projects.

The back entrance of Singles Barn now has a lovely custom made door instead of our previous temporary measure, making the whole building warmer and more secure.

They also put more roofs onto our aviaries, making them rain proof and enabling the Rescue to increase our holiday boarding income, as solid roof aviaries are always in high demand.



Nice work, gentlemen! 

Over the course of the year we have been fortunate enough to have had DIY volunteers as well as our own rabbit-orientated hard grafters. The skills of generous handymen have seen the demolition of our aged Old Barn and one of our smaller sheds, the erection of new fencing, laying of paving slabs, the inclusion of four donated Rabbitopias to our accommodation and more, as well as much appreciated general maintenance. A big thank you to everyone involved.

If anyone out there feels more at home with a screwdriver than a dustpan and brush, the Rabbit Residence enjoys your company too!

Monday 21 December 2015

Turf War


Not that long ago we invested in some lovely lush green turf and a group of volunteers underwired Bounty and Yully's aviary before lining it with a couple of rolls. After all the effort and expense involved, you'd think they would have the decency to at least try to look happy about it.


Sunday 20 December 2015

Whisky

It is with immense sadness that I have to tell you that Whisky has passed away.

Normally when one of our fluffy friends leaves for the rainbow bridge I would tell something of the story of their life and how they have touched ours at the Rescue. In Whisky's case his story, his personality, the crazy things he got up to, they are already here in the pages of this blog. And though I probably never said it here, I'm sure it was obvious to anyone who read his tiny tales - I loved him deeply.

Whisky was booked in for his nasal endoscopy on Wednesday, so the night before we decided to do our Xmas photo shoot. Santa hats, cuddles and lots of motivational treats. Whisky was in good spirits and, apart from the noises in his nose and all the sneezing, seemed in relatively good health. When the treats ran out he turned his back on me in a huff, but I laid next to him and gently stroked his head until he relaxed and let me cuddle him there on the floor. He went to sleep with my arm around him. It was a really sweet moment and one that I will never forget.

Wednesday morning before we left he was properly bright and cheerful. The pellets from dinner the night before had gone (in recent weeks they had been going untouched) and I even caught him eating hay, things were really starting to look up. And they got better - he came through his procedure OK, having two foreign objects removed from the lumps in his nose, most likely bits from the hay and grass that had gotten lodged. All that worry over such a little problem. Just the enlarged adrenal gland left to worry about.

At home, Whisky was groggy and disorientated but that was to be expected after a general anesthetic. His procedure was the last of the day, he hadn't been awake all that long when I picked him up, so he was even groggier and more confused than usual. He wasn't happy with me for leaving him at the vet for the day either so I left him alone for a couple of hours to recover. I'll spare you the details, but it then turned into a long, anxiety-filled night of little sleep for either of us. In the morning he was clearly worse so I put him in the car to rush him back to the vets.

An hours drive later, just five minutes away from the vets, we were stopped at a set of traffic lights. I looked at the carrier and there was his face pressed up against the door looking back at me. I was surprised, usually he spends the whole journey the other end hiding in disgust and/or fear. I told him we were close, the lights turned green and we were off again. A few minutes up the road I heard a noise, but I didn't think too much about it at the time. Another minute I was racing through the door of the vets, carrier in hand, but when I looked inside I realised it was too late, the noise I heard had almost certainly been his last breath. At around 8:40am on Thursday 17th December 2015, Whisky passed away.

We still don't know what finished him in the end. The post-mortem showed no blood anywhere it shouldn't be, no obvious indication of organ failure. The cause of the enlarged adrenal gland turned out to be a cyst. We are still waiting on a few test results but we may never know for sure, and knowing isn't likely to change anything. My beautiful boy is gone.

Whisky, you were the centre of my universe, my little boy, my everything. So long as I have memories you shall be in the best of them. My life will never be the same without you. I hope you are at peace.

Saturday 19 December 2015

Why Wait?

BHV: No Samosa, you help yourself to all the snacks in my pocket, why would I mind? [sigh]

"[.crunch.crunch.crunch.]"

Thursday 17 December 2015

Strike a Pose

We made it onto the ITV News website and the front page of the Hertfordshire Mercury newspaper last week. Great coverage for the Rescue and great for raising awareness of rabbit welfare issues, even if they did experience a little 'journalistic interpretation' on the way.

One rabbit in particular was very pleased with the coverage, since she made it into both articles. Not that Delta is over-stating her new fame, but apparently she is negotiating a new contract with the Rescue:- from now on I must only photograph her in favourable lighting, preferably in black-and-white and supply a carrot platter as part of her rider for every session...

"I think you'll also find details of my ear-masseur in there as well..."

Bunnies, eh? Give them an inch and they'll empty your fridge.

NOTE: Todays photo and post title were provided by volunteer and foster mum Emma. Delta and Scamper are currently available for adoption.

Wednesday 16 December 2015

Hiding Behind


Hello Celine!

"Oh... erm... hi? And how did you find me exactly? I was avoiding you in here."

Intuition? Magic?


Yeah. Let's go with magic.

Tuesday 15 December 2015

Daydreams, Tasty Daydreams

A bun stares into the distance, lost in thought, daydreaming of snacks. She dreams so hard she can almost taste them, smell them... Suddenly she wonders if maybe she dreamed them a little too hard...

"[.sniff.sniff...????]"

Sunday 13 December 2015

A Scanner, Whisky

It was a dark and cloudy day today so we didn't get any good photos of Whisky - I'm afraid the best I could do was this shot of his shaved ear while he was nomming his post-dinner parsley treat.

Whisky had his CT scan on Monday. I wasn't expecting much, ready to accept it was probably an aggressive attack of his recurring infections, but they found several items of concern. The most significant was a mass in his nose and a massively swollen adrenal gland. Either or both could be tumours, the thing in his nose could be an abscess so we are now waiting for more tests to see if anything can be done for him. We should know more in the next week or so, in the meantime he is back on his favourite tasting medicine, Metacam (pain relief and anti-inflammatory), alongside the usual twice daily nebulising.

Considering all the extra vet trips, he does seem in fairly good spirits and though his weight dropped again his appetite has improved a little. For now we are just trying to stay positive and enjoy our days, something Whisky is happy to do so long as the extra parsley and carrot portions keep coming!

Saturday 12 December 2015

Hoptacular Snacktastica

"[...om.nom.nom.nom.nom...]"

Thursday 10 December 2015

Quacked

"Hang on, nearly got it....seriously, when I get it into the right position it's the most hilarious duck impression you ever did see!"

Wednesday 9 December 2015

Going Door to Door


"This door belongs to me... and so will all the others by the time I've finished."

Tuesday 8 December 2015

Maxi Vacci


Last month, in response to a shortage of the single-use rabbit vaccine, we had to do a mass vaccination from a 50-dose vial that needed to be used up within 4 hours of opening. This meant not only a day spent preparing and then ferrying rabbits up and down the rescue for their jabs but in order to make up numbers my own pair of furries turned up for theirs. Not that I told them that's what they were going "on holiday" for. They were less than amused.


Sunday 6 December 2015

The Whisky Weekend Report

During the week Whisky's weight continued to drop and we had some frightfully messy days, but by the end of it we had mostly reached another stable routine with few surprises. He has a mostly bald bottom now, but without the fur it is both less prone to trapping anything that oozes out of that end and easier to keep clean when it does.

I have avoided trimming Whisky's foot fur because I don't want him to get sore feet, but thankfully the fur there is shorter and easier to clean. However, he has managed to create a sore spot on one of his back feet where he has worn a bit of fur away. The position of the sore means he can race about without issue, but when he stops he can't put his weight back on it comfortably.

Friday I finished work early and found Whisky was in an unusually happy and lively mode, even racing downstairs to demand some time outside. It was great to see him tearing around the garden, then trying to eat it all. Throughout his issues there have always been good days and bad days, so I wasn't surprised to see him looking terrible again yesterday morning. We missed watching our weekly Dr Who episode together because I was out, but lo and behold, when I started watching it on iPlayer in the lounge on my return he suddenly appeared and was in a cheery carrot-demanding mood! Whisky was so happy entertaining himself in the lounge that I left him with the run of the house when I retired to bed around 2am.

Well anyway, I guess the summary of the week is that he didn't get any better but overall, apart from his weight dropping, he didn't seem too much worse either. On top of this, today his weight was actually up on what it was two days ago, the first increase in about a month. Not by much and he is still very underweight, but it does at least give us a glimmer of hope.

Whisky is booked for a scan this week, so we will just have to wait and see if that tells us anything more.

"Oh dear - I've used up all my energy playing and now I don't have any left to mock you. You'll just have to belittle yourself. But when you're done..."

"...don't forget you still need to stick the sympathy carrot treats in this mouf!"

Saturday 5 December 2015

Praytime


Despite some sad losses last month, we've had some good luck lately in other areas with many bunnies choosing to behave and fall in love. In recent weeks, we've seen Edmund, Tubsy, Trixie and Kalulu going to wonderful new owners as well as another home awaiting long-termers Haribo and Arctic.

I'm sure we'll all join Kalulu in putting our paws together and wishing them all a long and happy future and that the spirit of romance stays around the Rescue for a while yet.


Thursday 3 December 2015

The Hand Over

"Don't you have something better to do than NOT giving us treats?"

Wednesday 2 December 2015

Completely Legless


Some of our residents are mature in years and become more vulnerable than they used to be. Still, who could be so cruel as to steal the limbs from poor old Tally?


Tuesday 1 December 2015

Tuesday Tail #Last?

I'm considering abandoning Tuesday Tail altogether as a theme. It's not just that I am at the Rescue less and finding I have less photos to match the themed posts, but also when I do try and deliberately take photos for Tuesdays it always feels a bit...creepy somehow.

[singing]"Just NOOOMMMMMMMIN in the grass, just nommin in the grass, what a glorious fee..."

"...what the???!!"

"Hey! How would you like it if I took photos of YOUR butt!"

With those paws? I'd be impressed. But yeah, point taken Hoppy, I'll leave you in peace to your grass nommage!