Farewell, Sweet Rabbit

RIP, Bailey the Rabbit. (Just seconds before the needle at VCA Animal Hospital in Elk Grove.)


Bailey the Rabbit has been a daily companion for the last two years. He loved kale and hated being picked up. He tolerated being petted, though, and so that's what I did at feeding time. Lately, his fur coat looked magnificent - just at the start of the shedding season, so it hadn't become tattered yet.

Bailey seemed to disappear this weekend, but with me being so busy at the theater, and all, I hardly noticed. He often did that. Disappeared from immediate view, only to reveal himself later.

This morning, bringing his kale down to his feeding bowls, I noticed he hadn't been eating - last night's kale was still there. I went hunting for him, and found him, hiding and listless in the yard. He was a mess. I cleaned him up, and noticed he had a massive, maggot-infested wound on his abdomen near his hind quarters. I drove him to Elk Grove, where they have staff at the animal hospital that specializes in rabbits.

The Veterinarian recommended immediate euthanasia. She suspected urea burn on his hind quarters created a weakness that was infested by flies. After a time, maggots punctured into the abdomen. By the time I brought him in, it had progressed too far. "He's having trouble even now - catching his breath - and see how pale he is," she said. Ominously, fleas were beginning to depart. I hadn't seen any recently, and I gave him flea medication a few weeks ago, but that's no hard guarantee, especially after last year's troubles.

The wound was so large, I had trouble believing maggots could do that. But it's also possible it came from some other source, like a small cut that became infected, or a cut from having been pursued by a predator. There had been a raccoon in the yard several weeks ago, but because Bailey's legs seemed uninjured, I suspect a raccoon wasn't involved. Or perhaps both a urea burn and an injury, together. Because maggots destroy all evidence, the source of the wound remains a mystery.

Bailey was a male rabbit, and they hate being turned over. In the Rabbit Kingdom, they do their own thing, as a general rule. So, I had a kind of compact with him: I would touch him, but almost never turned him over - because being turned over was so stressful, and rabbits don't handle stress well at all. But pets are like kids, where you sometimes have to force them to do the things that are good for them, but that they don't want to do themselves. Instead, I was too indulgent, and rarely turned him over, and examined him now and then. I remained unaware, even as a threat to his life developed.

I asked T. this weekend about her pet turkey. She was a bit reluctant to talk: they'd put the bird down. The turkey ate and ate so much that it couldn't walk properly anymore, and a minor fall broke its legs. So, in a way, her family indulged the bird, by not putting the bird on a diet, in a way similar to how I indulged the rabbit by not turning him over. We love our pets, but in giving them freer rein we don't always do the right thing for them.

The Vet did mention how pretty Bailey's fur coat was. Magnificent, actually (but with a fatal, unseen flaw).