Before I got back to Minnesota this summer, MCRS (the Minnesota Companion Rabbit Society) contacted me to see if I would be willing to foster a rabbit with some "behavioral issues" (not the first that I have dealt with). I agreed, and they hooked me up with Harley, an intelligent and energetic rabbit who had the unfortunate tendency to bite people. (His temporary name when he came to MCRS was Mayhem along with his sibling Mischief.)
I had Harley for just over 4 months starting in the beginning of July. When I first started with him, he would bite and run from me any time I got near. Recently though he started to let me pick him up and pet him, or lie down near where he was flopped out on the floor and scratch him behind the ears or rub his face or just hang out next to him. He liked climbing on me and nibbling my hair, doing full-speed laps around the living room, and constantly exploring and investigating. As is the case with many biting rabbits, he was rather intelligent and bit because he had learned that it was effective. It took some time, but I eventually trained him that biting would not keep me from picking him up, but that being picked up was not that scary anyway. He had improved to the point that I was ready to tell MCRS that he was ready to be adopted or transferred to a regular foster home.
Pretzel is one of my bonded pair of Dutch rabbits, Triscuit being the other. Both reside in the basement. Although Triscuit is the more aggressive of the two, Pretzel is a jealous partner. He does not hesitate to defend his damsel at the slightest provocation from another boy.
Anyway, by the time I was able to intervene, Harley was sprawled out triumphantly in the middle of the basement surrounded by tufts of fur while Pretzel was huddled underneath some shelves in the corner. (Triscuit had apparently stayed uninvolved in the whole fiasco. This summer when I would let all of the rabbits out in the yard to play, Triscuit and Harley got along fine. Maybe even a little bit more than "fine"... Triscuit can be rather flirtatious and I had to separate them at least once when their fooling around turned into humping. That may explain why Pretzel tends to be overly protective.)
I returned Harley to his cage upstairs and proceeded to treat everyone's wounds. Pretzel had a pretty deep gouge taken out of the top of his head and a couple other, more minor injuries. Harley had a small bite on his face that was easily treated. Everybody got hydrogen peroxide and a stern lecture.
Two days later, I noticed that Harley was limping when I let him out for his exercise time. I investigated closer and saw that I had missed a cut on his shoulder. I treated it with hydrogen peroxide and requested permission from the rabbit society to take him to see the vet. The next day (Saturday), I received permission to take him to the vet as soon as they opened Monday morning.
Saturday night his condition started to worsen. He started eating less and seemed to be in pain. By Sunday night he wasn't eating at all (not even treats) and I had to force him to take a baby aspirin to try to ease the pain. I stayed up with him and held him all night, as that seemed to make him feel more comfortable. At 4:00 AM, he had a seizure and then died in my arms.Even though Harley was "only" a foster, I still cared about him a lot. We had gotten pretty close over the last couple months as I had been training him to trust people and be more friendly. Now that he's gone to that big field of clover in the sky, I know he's happy running, playing, and exploring, but I hope he thinks about me every once in a while and knows that he is missed.
I'll return to more light-hearted posts, but I felt that Harley deserved an obituary. Thanks for taking the time to read his story.
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