Last night my little Netherland Dwarf died. Dr. Nyxie Wolfenstein was 6 years old, and we thought something was kind of off with his behavior yesterday evening, so we called our regular vet. Unfortunately the emergency phone was given to the OTHER vet that works at the practice, and although she's every bit as knowledgeable and good as our regular vet, she doesn't know us as well and therefore doesn't know that we'd NEVER call at 11:30 at night if we weren't certain there was an emergency.
Needless to say, she advised us to wait until the morning, because his symptoms weren't exactly life threatening. We had a bad feeling though, and rushed him to another emergency vet we've used in the past with so/so luck. Towards the end of the 40 minute car-ride, Nyxie seemed to perk up a bit, and even turned himself around in my lap to look out the window, one of his favorite activities.
We got him inside, and they took him back. We waited in the lobby for an hour before they spoke to us, and told us that while Nyxie seemed a bit "off", there wasn't anything life threatening going on. We reemphasized how uncharacteristically lethargic he was acting, and they told us they'd give him a couple of stabilizing shots, fluids and vitamins and whatnot, and we would take him to our regular vet the next morning. They said it would only take a couple of minutes, and we waited in the waiting room.
After a half an hour, I had a bad feeling. I was SO tired, it was about 1:30 am, and I had work the next morning at 8:00 am. "How long does it take to give a rabbit a couple of shots??!" I kept whispering to Joey.
At a little after 2 am, the doctor came out and told us that Nyxie had just had a seizure and that he wasn't breathing. She asked if they should try to resuscitate him, and we were like "DUH OF COURSE." and about fifteen minutes later, they told us his heart had stopped and that he was dead. UGH.
We got the body back, and I think they felt pretty bad about the whole situation because they really undercharged us on the bill. It was like, the emergency fee, and for the shots, but not the usual 200 dollar CPR bill, or the other emergency stuff they tried. We brought him home, completely stunned, and put him in the refrigerator.
I called in to work to tell them that I couldn't open on account of the whole 3 hours of sleep thing, and the fact that my face was all puffy and ridiculous from crying and freaking out.
We got a call from the vet we spoke to last night from our regular clinic at around noon. The emergency clinic had faxed the info over to them, I guess, and as soon as she saw that it was our bunny, she felt awful so she called and apologized and said that she really hadn't thought that his symptoms sounded life-threatening. Which, I'll grant her, they didn't. It's hard to go based on hunches from people you haven't really met before. Anyway, she told us to bring him in and she'd perform the necropsy for free, so we did. Really lucky we put him in the refrigerator last night. They're going to cremate him and give him back to us so I can put him next to Angel's (my cat) ashes, since they were good buddies in life.
It's just a really weird situation. I've always wanted just ONE bunny, and then all the sudden I got this urge and had to go out and buy Cloverfield, our new lop. And then two weeks later almost exactly, Nyxie dies. Just funny how things work out sometimes. I'm really glad that I got Cloverfield when I did, though, it's definitely made this whole thing easier.
I had Nyxie second longest of any pet I've ever owned. He was six years old, and just the awesomest bunny ever. My friend called me up six years ago and said that she bought a rather ugly little rabbit only to find out that she wasn't allowed to keep "her" (she bought Nyxie as a girl) in her dorm at college, so I was going to let the rabbit live with me until she graduated. Of course I got attached and my friend never really ended up getting a pet-friendly place after college. I looked online at pictures of Netherland Dwarves before going to pick her up, and was thoroughly surprised at the long-eared, gangly little creature that she was. Utterly nothing like the pictures of dwarves on rabbit breeder websites, with their tiny ears and scrunchy faces.
Nyxie lived as a girl for four years with us. She was seen by two different breeders, and our old vet, and everyone was convinced that Nyxie was a girl. It wasn't until two years ago when Nyxie jumped up onto the bed and feverishly mounted Joey's forearm that we learned the truth. Nyxie was indeed, the girliest little boy bunny. He lived in a cage in my room for a few years, then a hutch out back when my dad decided that we couldn't have indoor pets (besides the cat), and finally he moved with me into my fiance's house and lived in a GIANT pen in the garage with his two best goat friends. He LOVED those goats, he'd run happy laps around them, scent mark their legs with his little chin, and climb onto their backs when they laid down.
He was way too spunky for his own good, and afraid of nothing. He'd bound through rooms and dive onto the bed to dig frantically on top of the covers before sticking his tongue out at you and darting away. Or he'd dive into your lap for a one minute petting session then nip your pants and run away. He was old, but he wasn't THAT old. He had a good life, but I'm so broken up about seeing him go so soon. The goats are very upset about it, too, they were both very attached to him and know something's amiss.
Here he was when we first brought our goats home:
The time we discovered that Build-A-Bear clothes fit him, and we still thought he was a girl:
And my favorite picture of him:
RIP Nyxie Wolfenstein
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