Rescue Journal

tough week.

Carol  ·  May 16, 2017

it has been a very tough week.

conan the barbarian was rushed to the vets over the weekend following what we think was a stroke. while he is not fully recovered, he is doing well. conan is ancient..somewhere around 18 yrs old.

vinnie was rushed into the emergency clinic late on sunday night, suddenly he was frantic and unable to pee. he spent the night in hospital, and returned home the next morning. it appears that his prostate is greatly enlarged and there is concern it is malignant. they were able to insert a cathetor while he was in hospital and currently he is again able to empty his bladder on his own again.

kyah had an eye enucleation today, the eye was blind and we have been trying for months to fight off infection with medicated eye drops. the vets decided that enoughwas enough and that she would do better with that eye removed. she is now home but not a happy camper tonight.

we are having a really hard time with our new guy bear...he has been growling at us when doing his eye drops and when giving him his insulin. yesterday he did try to bite the staff during his eye meds so now he has to be muzzled for that. so far i am still doing his insulin without a muzzle and i am hoping we can continue with that. however the real issue with bear right now is he is escalating in aggressive behavior around the cats. today there were several significant issues so now the cats are locked up in the back rooms until we can figure out what to do. we currently do not have any cat free segregated areas to move him to...we have too many other problematic dogs who are not safe to move.

and finally this has upset us all here..we have had to abandon our efforts to catch the last 2 baby rabbits.the neighborhood was upset at the rabbits removal as they really enjoyed watching the mom and the babes. since we were no longer welcome on private property to trap them, it made a very difficult task impossible. we feel sick inside that we were unable to trap the last 2 babes, and due to their very young age, we don't expect them to survive on their own.
in the end, we were able to get mom, 2 surviving juveniles from her previous litter and 8 of the tiny newborn babes, but i think all of us consider this a failure since we had to leave behind, 2 innocent and helpless babes.

i know folks who believe in the same things that we do might be upset and think unkind things of the neighborhood but you have to understand that firstly not everyone thinks or believes in the same things and secondly good hearted and very kind people sometimes don't know or understand why catching the rabbits and removing them was so very important. once mom came into our care, and we realized she had left vulnerable babies somewhere, we had to try to re-unite them. returning a weakened, thin and in poor shape mother back to the park to try to survive on her own and care for her nursing babies was not a responsible option in our minds. but not everyone agreed with us so we had little choice but to respect their rights to refuse us access.

it sucks, but such is life.

the best we can do is hope that somehow the 2 babies survive and live out healthy and happy lives. please let it be so.

thank you to laura, erin, renee and anne for trying so hard for so many hours..even in the pouring rain.

tonight the sheep and llamas were sheared..thank you to taryn and shelley for staying late to help get them done!

our 2 little guinea pigs got a great home so we are really happy about that!

there might be more news but i am too tired to think of it.

Comments

Penny

Last year when we were helping SARS try to catch two rabbits in a local park (might be the two parent bunnies that Saints has now) we had so many people coming up to us, asking us to leave them alone. Some were pretty rude. On the second day, the Park Manager came over and very nicely asked us to leave. She said people liked to feed the rabbits, and they were happy where they were. Other people had originally complained to SARS that one of the rabbits was in bad shape and losing her hair, and asked them to try and trap it. The issue of domestic rabbits dumped into the wild certainly seems to be a divisive issue with people.

Helga

On Sunday the baby bunnies you did catch were eating some rabbit kibble and some greens on their own. At the moment there's some succulent new growth out there. All fingers crossed that they will survive.