Day 18. V-E-T-S Our bunny has ESP
10 am appointment booked, we were like nervous parents meeting the teacher at the end of year review. The fears were many; what if he was over-weight already? Or worse, under? What if what we took for a normal bunny was in fact some alien species that would have to be taken away and experimented on and made weapons grade?
The first hurdle came trying to get him into the pet carrier. Clearly he could sense that the blue plastic box was not a happy place, even filled with grade A bunny hay. All the coaxing in the world wouldn’t get him in so we had to resort to bribery-a nice bit of apple-and after trying and failing that, he was unceremoniously plonked in. He wasn’t happy.
Apparently it’s best to get your rabbit used to car journeys in short bursts followed by plenty of love etc etc but we hadn’t read that bit of advice until the evening before so it was going to be a rude awakening for the Bun Chop.
Roughly seven minutes later we ended the journey with a grumpy and unconvinced rabbit. It didn’t bode all that well. It wasn’t helped as we made our way in that someone (whistles innocently) managed to bang his carrier against the wall. So we had a rabbit who had had a bad journey and now mild concussion. What could go wrong? ‘Get down, get away from there…hey!' Yes, an over friendly dog trying to press his muzzle as far into the carrier as he could get. I don’t know about Bun Chop but I felt violated. If the owner hadn’t dragged it away I would have been tempted to give it a look, if not a swift boot toe. So now he was wide-eyed and nose twitching a-go-go and probably suffering major heart palpitations. I wasn’t far off myself.
‘G’day!’ Ok, she didn’t say that exactly but Bun Chop’s vet is Australian, blond and tanned. How she has managed to maintain this living in the North of England we can only ponder. We got off to a great start, mainly because who doesn’t feel a wave of Neighbours nostalgia when confronted by an Aussie who isn’t vomiting into your front garden (we’ve lived in West London) and most importantly she said just the right thing ‘he’s a great rabbit!’ Yes, yes he is. Cue much smirking and pride. Doesn’t matter that she probably says that to all the owners, even those who have three-eyed, six-legged guinea pigs.
Clearly a ladies man Bun Chop came out of his carrier without hesitation and neither bit, honked, squirmed nor weed. He even deigned to be weighed. 1 kilo exactly. What a boy! I don’t know what that is in bags of sugar but I bet it’s not an awful lot. Our pride however was swiftly tempered with horror, not only because he might have a misaligned jaw-do they do rabbit braces? But also with the…down there. I know we will get him done but we have never discussed his anatomy so it was with some horror that the vet asked us if we had had a look and then proceeded to display his genitals for all to see. Eck! I’ll say no more but there is no way I will ever be going into his fur to check out that particular area. I don’t care how handsomely we have to pay a vet. Did I mention, eck!
Talking of paying, that’s myxamitosis all done and dusted, for one year at least, and we made an appointment for his HVD for five weeks time. At 17.50 a pop it’s not gonna be a cheap undertaking. Add to that the fact that we now have to feed him ‘Super Rabbit' pellets - he’ll be going on holiday before us. 'Super Rabbit' pellets I hear you say? Hm, yes. Apparently, despite its recommendation at the pet shop, we had been feeding him an overly sweet dry mix that would result, five months down the line, with a sticky tail and a bigger vets bill. The solution? Expensive but nutrient rich extruded pellets that look just like his poo but apparently will see him live a long and excellent life. How could we refuse?
Back home and in his cage he gives us the cold shoulder for the rest of the day. I don’t blame him.
