Poppy bunny was our first bunny-born, and is the reason that I absolutely love rabbits! Poppy was perhaps the most independent of all my bunnies, although she became more tolerant in her later days. She loved a cuddle and a stroke, but only on her terms. When she was a kitten she loved jumping up on my lap, and was very much a climber in her younger days. If there was anything in the room to climb on, Poppy would find it! Poppy could be a little aggressive when unwanted attention was forced onto her. She had a particularly aggressive few days just prior to being spayed, but she became much calmer after this operation. Poppy often had a mad ten minutes racing round the room at full speed when she was younger. Poppy did not suffer from many illnesses except mites (caused through stress when her younger brother George died) and a permanently scalded foot - a result of either myself using a too strong cleaning disinfectant or a urine scold. She did however, develop an absess very close to her ear. This may have been the result of a scratch she got which then became infected, or could have been due to getting older. We had it drained once but it returned. Our vet was reluctant to drain it again as it was in a very delicate place on the side of her head, and she took a long time to recover from the anesthetic. It didn’t appear to give her any bother.
A few years ago Poppy had to have her front teeth taken out as they were growing out of alignment with each other. Since then she ate very well, although could only enjoy vegetables if they were grated, or cut up very small. Poppy remained a strong, healthy and beautiful doe, always being told how pretty she was when she went to visit the vet, upto about 6 weeks ago when we noticed one of her back legs seemed to be becoming a little useless to her. This was not a great problem at first, although adjustments had to be made to Poppy’s zoo zone, as she spent a lot of time laying in the same place. But her use of this leg deteriorated and she began falling over. Again, this didn’t seem to be a massive problem when it first began, but she would exhaust herself trying to get back up. We made the decision that we couldn’t let Poppy suffer like this, and so had her put to sleep, after sharing 9 years together. As you can imagine it was a very sad time, but the right thing to do!
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