Today, we headed back to Animal Care League in Oak Park, to introduce Phineas to a few rabbits. We visited several bunny rabbits last weekend, and had a list of the ones we liked. Our goal today: introduce Phineas to the top contenders, and see if he liked any of them as well.
Our process in the past has always been two-fold: we would go first, and scout out potential candidates. We wanted to make a list of rabbits that we liked ourselves, and seemed to get along with. After that, we’d bring our rabbit for an initial meeting, and see how the two got along.
Lately, when we arrive home and let Phineas out of his area… he’ll head straight for the bedroom. It’s still rather surprising to me that, when I go to look for him, I’ll find him just perched at the foot of the bed. Relaxing.
It was my coworker Beck’s last day at work yesterday, and she was offering to do small drawings for anyone who stopped by her desk and wanted one.
I am saddened to share the news that we had to put Quincy to sleep today. His age and arthritis made movement for him difficult, and for the past week and a half… he was largely unable to move around without assistance.
While he’s had a predictable pattern of good days, bad days, and then good days again… this has been the longest stretch of consecutive bad days. So far, we haven’t seen very much in terms of improvement, but Liz and I are still holding out hope that he rallies a bit.
Liz and I came home last week to discover this lovely mess. When looking around to see who the culprit might have been…
Quincy has been having some bad days, lately. The worst happened this past Saturday and Sunday, where he wasn’t really moving around that much, having problems with his left leg. On Saturday, it was the worst. I ended up having to pick him up out of the litterbox, because he was unable to right himself….
Got this picture of Quincy tonight, with him sticking out his right foot. I think he’s doing this for more balance, as it’s his left foot he’s been struggling more with lately.
Come Sunday, he was really bad – not moving much at all. And at times, when he headed for something, he curved – with his left leg not looking like it was moving at all. At a few points, it seemed like he was army-crawling. He looked in poor spirits.
We spent a good deal of the day getting prepped for work. But unfortunately, when all was said and done… the powerwasher had some issues. There was water coming through, but there was a leak somewhere that Bob couldn’t fix without taking the engine apart.
The recent spat of litterbox incidents made Liz think that perhaps Phineas is starting to get a little bit bored. So we’re introducing a few new things hoping that they’ll distract.
With Quincy having more mobility problems of late… we decided to try out a different litter box. The ones we used in the past were somewhat high on the sides, which sometimes provide difficult for Quincy to get past – both going in and out of the litterbox.
I learned that the doctor tends to go for 15 minute treatments for pain, though some animals may vary in terms of how they respond to the duration. Quincy seemed to fare a little worse the last few times, so she reduced the treatment time from 15 minutes to around 7-8 minutes.
The place we took Quincy to was called Integrative Pet Care. On arriving Liz noticed that the setup was very similar to what one might expect at a regular physical therapy office. But this one had stations designed for people who had a few more legs.