Hi everyone It’s about time for Wilbur and Totoro’s yearly vet check ups and I’m trying to decide between two different vets. Sorry this might be long.
The current vet I have been going to does neuters and spays for the humane society I go to. I took Wilbur to her to be spayed and I found out that she neutered Totoro and took care of his health problems when he was at the humane society. I think she did an excellent job with Wilbur’s spay and it really seems like a nice place. But I also took Totoro there when I was concerned he had a UTI and his poops were really offensive smelling, she said he was adjusting to his new diet but it’s 6 months later and he still has the same “issue”. My concern with her is that even though she did a great job with the spay, she doesn’t really show much knowledge about rabbits outside of spaying. She knew the proper anesthesia, to not feed rabbits ahead of time, to bring tempting food in, to remove both ovaries and uterus and was very thorough but during check ups she doesn’t really seem to check over everything enough; she doesn’t ever check the back teeth and doesn’t really give much info. It just seems for some reason that she doesn’t really know that much.
The vet I took my previous rabbit to seemed to have an abundance of knowledge about rabbits. He really made sure to check everything, even explaining to me bout anal glands (ew) and used a special tool to look at Tigger’s back teeth. The reason why I didn’t go back to him is because a couple weeks later Tigger died. I can really only explain my concerns by giving a little info on how Tigger died and maybe someone can shed light on what I should do (and maybe help me figure out exactly what happened). I went away on vacation for a week and I had a family friend take care of him who also has a rabbit. On the day I returned I found Tigger underneath the bed covered in diarrhea so I immediately took him to an emergency vet that was listed on my vet’s website. Tigger had weight loss and through an x-ray they found liquid in his abdomen, which the emergency vet said was usually a sign of cancer, he suggested putting Tigger down or trying to feed him Critical Care. It was all so sudden I didn’t want to give up yet so I brought him home and a couple hours later Tigger died. The emergency vet said he had obvious muscle loss that had to have happened over time. Now the emergency vet could have been completely wrong and I often think back worrying that Tigger could have been saved somehow, it just happened so fast. Thinking about it makes me feel sick and cry. It’s been a year and it still upsets me. I didn’t go back to the regular vet because I was worried that he missed something obvious. The vet also had said that raisins are poisonous to rabbits which I later found out wasn’t true. Am I wrong in thinking that this vet isn’t good? He really seemed to know a lot.
Thank you so much to anyone who can give some insight.