Recovering from a Dog Attack

[Kaylan]

This past weekend my husband and I went out of town and left our 2 dogs and bunny in the care of a friend who stayed at our house for the weekend. Charlie, the bunny, is free roam when we are home and confined to our bathroom (which is rabbit proofed) via a baby gate when we are gone. The day before we left, a neighbor left a nasty note about our dogs on our front door claiming that they bark too much and would call the police next time. In order to avoid confrontation while gone, we told our sitter to put the dogs in our bedroom whenever he left the house. Our dogs love our bun and always give her kisses and nudges and are never violent towards her. However the night before we returned home our sitter called us to inform us that the dogs had knocked the baby gate down and roughed the bunny around. He put the bun in another bathroom and cleaned her off- he is not TOO familiar with bunnies and didn't see the obvious signs of emergency.

We took her to the vet as soon as we got home the next morning. She has a bruised lung and injured spinal tissue. We are still waiting to hear back from the neurologist on EXACTLY what is wrong with her back. They kept her in the hospital overnight and released her back to us yesterday. When we first brought her to the vet she had little to no use of her front paws. She has shown some improvement but still has partial paralysis, mainly in her front right arm. She can move around a bit, but is obviously not right. She also developed an eye infection of some sort, for which the vet prescribed us a eye wash and an antibiotic cream. It's pretty bad though, mainly in her left eye. There is a thick white mucus coming out near her tear duct and her bottom eye lid is red and drooping away from her eye. I read online that these kind of problem are normally due to a tooth issue, but my vet never mentioned it. What do y'all think?

Besides the eye medication, nothing else was done for her paralysis. They gave her steroids and an IV in the hospital, but that was it. He told me to keep her in a small room for the next week and come in with a follow up visit next week. 

Charlie is hardly eating. I can't get her to touch her pellets or hay. All I have managed to get her to eat are small amounts of kale, banana, carrot, celery, and parsley- but I mean REALLY small amounts. I set up both her normal water bowl and a handing water bottle for easier access, but she still isn't drinking much. She responds best when I use an eye dropped to bring the water to her month (although she is mobile enough to get to her water bowl or bottle if she desired). Yesterday she had a bit of really small, hard, and sticky poops, but today she had only had very large mushy ones.

I'm a bit worried and feel like a week is a long time to wait for a follow up. What do y'all think? Should I look into a secondary vet opinion? 

Our vet visit with the overnight stay left us with a pretty hefty vet bill (more than $800) and my Care Credit card is almost maxed out, but I want her to get the best care she can, even if that means setting up appointments, x-rays, and all those goods with another clinic. I feel like a spinal injury is pretty urgent…isn't a week a long time to wait?

I would appreciate any advice or options you can give. I feel absolutely horrible and responsible for putting our dogs and our bunny in a situation where this could happen. 

[Roberta]

I know in humans and other animals it is common to wait several days to a week with any injury that involves bruising round the spine.. The Xrays will not show true and mobility cannot be assessed whilst there is inflammation… However if you are concerned I would suggest asking for an earlier appointment or calling for a second opinion…
I also find it strange that in your absence one of your dogs would change behavior and suddenly attack your bun especially if they are normally fine together… Could your pet sitter be telling you a story to cover a visit from friends with children ?

[Kaylan]

That’s true- I guess I’m just a little nervous. My husband and I just moved to a new city and didn’t have a regular bunny vet. The clinic we went to was the only one we could find that would take us right away. But it does take time to heal. I just know bunnies are super sensitive- dehydration and bad poop could be a really bad sign…right?

And our sitter is actually a good friend from our home town who was visiting. He came in town for a concert and was gone most of the day/night of the incident. We trust him completely. He feels so bad about what happened. Our dogs are generally very sweet to Charlie, but dogs are dogs and they have instincts. Honestly, I think they were just trying to play, but don’t realize their own strength. She would be dead if they had wanted to kill her

[Roberta]

Odd poop is a bad sign but gooey poop can be a result of stress, if the pellets are large and sticky at this stage I would be accepting that as a good sign that Charlie is not in Stasis… Lots of rest and quiet would be the go but back to the vert at the first sign of anything that concerns you or pick uup the phone and give them a call.

[LittlePuffyTail]

I’m so sorry this happened to your bunny. I’m afraid I don’t have any experience here but I want to offer your bunny some well wishes for a speedy recovery.

(((((Charlie))))

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

I’m so sorry!! I’m sending lots of {{{Healing Vibes}}} and please keep us posted on how things go

[Roberta]

Hows little Charlie today ?

[Monkeybun]

Did you get any pain meds for him? If not, that could be why he isn’t eating much.

[Author]

Messages