Yesterday Was A Tough One

Yesterday was a very sad day for me. I had to say goodbye to a beloved member of the family. Schatzie, my bunny rabbit, who had adopted me 6 years ago, had lost an incredible amount of weight in 72 hours. When I took her to the vet yesterday, I heard the worst news possible: She had a massive, rapidly growing, cancerous tumour in her abdomen. I had no choice but to have her euthanized.

    While I prefer my Cheerios with milk, Schatzie got hers dry.

This July would have been 6 years that I found her laying in my driveway in Fredericton, NB. She was full grown then, and while putting up posters in the neighbourhood to see if I could find her owner, I found out that she had been released on purpose by her previous owner, because they no longer wanted her. She and another bunny had been released together, but the other rabbit had been run over by a car. At that moment I decided that I would keep her, and since that day she has been my Schatzie (which is German for sweetie).

A year after I got her, she flew with me in the passenger compartment, from the East Coast, to her new home on the West Coast, aboard an Air Canada flight.

Because I’ve always had sight hounds (a number of borzoi, a whippet, and a rescue, whippet mix) it is rather ironic that I ended up with a live “lure” for these lure coursing dogs. However Schatzie lived in a huge wire dog crate in the middle of the living room, and had her 4 hours of “out” time a day, when the dogs were locked up, so she knew she was safe. The dogs never tormented her, and luckily we never had any “accidents”.

Schatzie had the kind of life that most rabbits unfortunately never will. She will be deeply missed by the whole household. She had become a very good companion animal to Buddy, my whippet mix. The 2 of them moved from Fredericton together. Buddy is wandering around the house today, looking for his Schatzie.