Rumble in the rabbit village

Hi everyone!

Something terrible happened in our rabbit 'village' Monday: Hummer (oldest rabbit, 8y old) got hurt in a fight with his son, Camaro (6y old). Camaro has bitten a piece of Hummer's right ear.
Grace must've seen it happening, because she was barking at the cage in a very strange way! She alarmed us. When we saw how badly he was hurt, we immediately called our vet and we could visit him just 15min later. Our vet was really concerned, because of Hummer's high age. The vet didn't want to put him under anesthetics, so he stitched Hummer's ear back together without any sedation... I held Hummer while the vet proceeded. Hummer was surprisingly calm during the procedure, I feared he'd have a heart attack during... When the vet had stitched the ear back up, Hummer kind of let go a bit, we honestly thought we'd lose him, but as we put him back in his carrier he lived up and started to wash himself almost immediately. That obviously was a very good sign.
Now he's separated from his evil son and lives with his daughter, Shelby, in a smaller cage. We put them together because they get along really well and we know Shelby can get very emotional when she hasn't got the company of her dad. She lived alone for a little while and she got really aggressive, when we put her dad with her, she instantly felt better and they've been inseparable ever since!

We have to keep a close eye on Hummer's well being, but he looks very good and lively. He rests more often, but I think that's also the antibiotics doing their work. He has to have a lot of pain too, because it's such a big bite wound.

Hummer with his stitched ear... 

Hummer 

Hummer's ear: 6 stitches

Shelby keeps her dad company! 

We don't know what got Camaro to start fighting his dad, but it might be that he's tired of his old man ruling the 'village' and that he wants to be the mayor... Since Hummer's 8 years old and Camaro is 6 that could've been the reason.
Anyway we will not put our senior back with the youth. He will live with his 6-year-old daughter for as long as he lives (hopefully that will be another few years).

Mona's foot... :(

Mona has to stay inside for the next couple of days. She can only walk two times for about ten minutes and then back to resting. She hurt her foot on Monday, but that happens more often, so we didn't take her to the vet's immediately. Over night and yesterday it got a lot worse. If she stands up, she limps like crazy. Our vet didn't find anything, Mona's a though girl, she doesn't show her pain easily. The vet examined her very thoroughly but he couldn't say what it was. He thinks it's not that serious because she didn't respond to any of his actions, but he was worried about the fact that she limps very hard. He advised to let her rest and just take her on two short walks for the rest of the week. She's on anti-inflammatories so if there is an infection somewhere that will cure it. Hopefully she gets better soon, because she looks a bit sad not to be able to play with her friends...
One sunny side to this story for Mona: inside the house it's a lot chillier than outside, so maybe she won't be that sad! ;)

Ticks and hot spots

We HATE ticks and hot spots...
Viggo had another one. It's the fourth this year. He was on antibiotics for weeks and now he has a new one. Another 'hole' in his fur... Luckily we found this one in an early stage so normally this one should be easy to treat. The hot spots appear where we removed a tick. Why do those animals exist? They do nothing but damage to everyone and everything they meet! Really I've had enough of those animals ruining my dogs' fur.
Mona seems to be the most resistant to ticks, she doesn't have them as much as those other two. Viggo seems to attract them the most. It's sooo annoying. Every time I cuddle my dogs I find a tick! :(
Viggo wears two Scalibor collars, one collar isn't enough because of his size and weight and because he has to be fully protected seen that he gets a lot of tick-bites (vet recommended). Grace and Mona wear a Scalibor collar too and for them that seems to be enough. But our Viggo keeps on suffering from tick-bites. I'm really worried someday he might get really sick from one of those tick-bites.
Does someone of you know another remedy to treat tick-bites? If we remove a tick on Viggo's body, it always becomes a real big bump...

Grace trying to stop me from working in the front garden.

Pleasant discovery

Hi everyone!

We did a pleasant discovery this weekend. When we were shopping in the pet shop, we saw little rabbits with alongside of them a description of how to look after them. There we saw their life expectancy was 5-6 years old. Well, we are proud to tell you all our rabbits now are older than 6. The oldest is 8 years old and although he's always been grey, you wouldn't say he's the grandpa of the family! :)

E-card from Grace's brother!

Grace got this card from her brother. Grace on the left, Justifier (Billie) on the right. 

Merci beaucoup, Sandrine, pour cette carte! C'est merveilleux!

Birthday girl!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY to our dear Gracie!

Happy birthday also to Billie 'Le Roi' and Falcon. They all turn 2 today! :)

Gracie, just a couple of weeks old

Gracie

Grace, 2 years old!

We have a birthday boy in the house....

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, VIGGO!!!!

Today Viggo celebrates his 7th birthday! We wish him a very happy day with lots of dog candy, toys and everything he desires!

Happy birthday also to his sisters, Iris & Noelle II and to his brother, Noè!

Viggo, 1 day old! (picture by Iwonna Salak)

With his brother and sisters. Viggo is at the bottom, right. (picture by Iwonna Salak

The very first picture we had from our boy
when we knew he was going to be ours. (picture by Iwonna Salak)

Our boy now! All grown up! 

Like cat and dog...

Our pets are the best in the world and I'll tell you why!

They get along really fine, every once in a while there's a little rubble, but come on that happens in the best families! 

They're loyal to us. 

They love us unconditionally. Even if you look terrible or are having a bad day, they're there for you, no matter what. 

They beg for cuddles if they think you left them alone for too long (Mr. Boombastic, Shaggy, is the master in this matter!). 

If you're down and out on the sofa, they almost want to sit on your lap to give you the warmth you need after a long day of work out in the cold. Shaggy can do that, no problemo, but when our girlies try to get on to our laps, we have to tell them no... Viggo will comfort you just by sitting beside you and letting you warm your hands on his neck (always really warm there, just behind his ears, heaven!). 

We took our Shaggy in, after we discovered we had a little (very big) mice-problem! We said to the lady in the shelter we weren't sure how our dogs (than just Viggo & Mona) would react to the cat. 

A lot of barking the first evening. The next day eskimo kissing (nose rubbing) and in the afternoon they found peace with each other. Mona and Shaggy used to play a lot together. That's actually why I started writing this message. Mona and Shaggy just played with each other again after not playing for a few months! Grace usually plays with Shaggy nowadays, but today she was too tired. Shaggy tried to get her excited to play, unfortunately when I took the camera they stopped (as usual!). It was really funny, though, how he teased her! :) 

So what I actually want to say here is that I love my pets soooo much. I couldn't do without them. They bring so much joy into your home. Every time I walk by one of them, I have to pet them or give them a kiss. 

I sound really sentimental, I know, but it's the truth... 

One more time: the movie where Grace takes Viggo for a walk... (please don't mind the laughing)

Hot spot

Hello everyone!

A little update about Viggo's health. Viggo recently had two hot spots in a row. In January the first one healed pretty good with antibiotics and disinfectant. Now he's had the hotspot for over 5 weeks. We tried with antibiotics (Baytril) and disinfectant for two weeks but nothing changed. Now we started new antibiotics (Clyndamicine), because apparently the bacteria were immune to Baytril. The vet discovered that there were apart from staphylococci, pseudomona present in the wound. Those pseudomona are really hard to defeat. So apart from the new antibiotics we have to wash the wound every two days with chlorhexidine (let it work for 10 minutes) and than blow dry it very good.
We hope that will work...

Hot spot

"I don't like you taking pictures of me in bath!"

Happy birthday to Viggo's kids!

Happy birthday to I-litter van Tiroca!
Viggo's their daddy and Reina-Unique of the Weeping Willow is their mommy. Below you find two of the daughters. Happy birthday Emma and Kiara!

Emma - Ipanema van Tiroca

Kiara - Irish van Tiroca

Shaggy's sick... again...

Our cat, Shaggy, is sick again and he's really suffering. He's got a bladder infection again. He couldn't pee last week so we raced to the vet (last time we were just in time, he told us). The vet emptied his bladder by squeezing it. Normally when you squeeze a cat's bladder the pee shouldn't come out. Shaggy peed instantly, but he screamed so loud. I didn't know a cat could cry so hard. When it was over he came to me searching for comfort and mum and I stood there with tears in our eyes. The vet told us it must've hurt like hell... Yeah, we figured that much! The vet sent Shaggy's pee to pathology and Monday we had the result: severe bladder infection with possible kidney infection.
All the odds are against our little Shaggy-boy, because cats with kidney problems are often sterilized and stay inside too long so they don't empty their bladder enough. Now he has to eat special food, take a lot of pills for a long time and when he's in pain he can have another pill that relieves the pain.
Now we're a week later and he's still not really well. This afternoon he went on and off his litter box followed by a crazy ass running around the house and trying to lick his behind. We saw it started to hurt again so we gave him the pain relief. Now he's doing better, but we see in his eyes that it still hurts.
I hope he'll get better soon, I hate seeing him like this. I want my happy, non-aggresive cat back!!

Snow!!!!

Our dogs love snow! Especially Mona likes to be covered in it. Normally she's never too excited to go outside, but if it has snowed, you simply can't stop her. Viggo and Grace on the other hand like to play in it for a little while, but they soon come knocking on our back door to get back in. Not Mona, she can't get enough!! Here is the proof:

Mona has been defeated... 

PLAYING!!! 

More plaaayyyyiiinnngggg!!! 

Although this picture isn't clear at all, I love it!
 It's Viggo shaking off snow! 

Beautiful Mona

Mona

Viggo

Grace covered in snow

Mona, waiting for someone to play with her... 

Mouse steps

Mouse steps

Grace

Grace

Mona

Grace

Grace

Grace

Rabbits protected against the cold. 

Our street

Beautiful tree

Beautiful tree

Snow is sooo amazing! 

Our business van covered in ice... 

The ducks on the pond

The ducks on the pond

Snow fallen from a tree onto the frozen pond. 

Duck steps

Deer steps

The three musketeers
From L-R: Viggo - Grace - Mona

The three musketeers:
L-R: Viggo - Grace - Mona

Beautiful Viggo

Gracie

Mona

Viggo

Viggo

Grace
Next to her right eye: a frozen drool

Mighty Mona

Almighty Viggo

Gracie

Viggo