Updates from Linda...

Once again a busy week. Sunny the Bronx Zoo Bunny and Butterscotch the single bunny belonging to the lady who is dying of cancer both found loving homes this week. I was finally able to remove the Elizabethan collar from Tuckers today and he is no longer tearing at his stitches. He managed to remove 4 sets of stitches in 4 weeks and I had given up hopes of ever getting the collar off him! He has worn the collar for three weeks now and has been very unhappy the entire time. Michelle Malones bunny, Jingles, had a horrible accident where he managed somehow to quite literally neuter himself on a sharp edge of a baby gate that he chewed his way thorough. I picked him up in Fairfield on Friday with his testicles and part of his intestine quite literally hanging out of his body and we all thought there was no hope. I am so happy to say that 3 days later he is back here with me, all sewn up and seemingly quite happy! Dr Cronin did a wonderful job putting him back together and now we just have to hope that the antibiotics are strong enough to prevent peritonitis. So far so good and Jingles appears happy and well on his way to being healthy again! A lady in Bridgeport rescued a bunny in a park and called us desperate for help. She had been feeding him oranges so we took him in fast! She dropped the poor bunny off at Brandee's only for us to discover that he has head tilt. So Brandee now has three head tilt bunnies in her care, it's off to Dr. Pieper Monday. Cinnamon2 must need a tooth trim as he is once again in stasis. I started him on treatment and will get him to the vets on Monday to get those teeth looked at. Carmie is breathing heavier and I suspect that his time with us may be ending soon. He has a large either abscess or tumor pressing against his trachea. I am watching him closely and I'm afraid he may be going to the bridge very soon. I sure hope I'm wrong on that. Between Brandee and I it feels like we have a hospital. We have several bunnies returning to the Hollow for visits while their owners are on vacation. Brandee is taking in Marley and Phoebe and I have Momma Cookie returning with her companion bunny. I suspect Bryne is the only one who will remember Momma Cookie, she was adopted out in 2005, but if memory serves me correctly Cookie had the hollow's very first set of babies born to us. I can't wait to see her now two years later. Tinkerbelles owners contacted us to say how happy they are with Tinkerbell now known as Belle.

Last, the petters are in at PETCO Norwalk. I have hopes of getting a bunny into PETCO on Monday or Tuesday. Exciting!!!!

Long Time No Blog - LOTS of UPDATES

I'm sitting in my bosses house, they are away in Bermuda and I have the kids for the weekend, which is over today. We have done all sorts of stuff like pick up hamsters and a new head-tilt bunny (named Bugsy by the very kind people who found him wandering a park in Bridgeport while walking their dog) to having (17) 13 year olds swimming in the pool. Lots of laundry (towels) this weekend and a very busy month has passed by. Sasha and Pekachu both came back due to their owner having had kidney stints put in and serious health issues arise, both have been adopted back out. A bunny tossed at the Bronx Zoo, Sunny, was brought to us by the Chinchilla Depot's Shelly, and has been adopted out. Tucker went for his neuter last month and started chewing his, his umm, yeah, ok, his testicles. He's been wearing an E-Collar for the past month now, little bugger, and stasis monster is now going into stasis again - both are at Linda's. Carmie is not doing so well, Linda's bunny bonded with Angel, and is on orals 2x daily and Bicillin 3x weekly. At my house I have the new head-tilt bunny (makes 3 now), Butterscotch who is doing much better in my opinion, Penny and Cleo - still not sounding great - how long now? Over A YEAR? Now, Ringo the ringworm bunny is showing signs of great illness after being neutered last week. He is sneezing and barking like Cleo does, he's on Zithromax and Bicillin currently. Annabelle is on her final 2 days of Zith and everyone else seems to be holding their own now. We have a new black bunny at my place named Silk, and we took in 3 lops (1 bonded pair) from a woman terminally ill with cancer. The bonded pair are very sweet and awaiting a new home, her single boy, another Butterscotch, was just adopted out. Laurie, owner of Brian and Colin, has decided to adopt Sparkle and I will try to start the bonding process in the next few days. I'm thinking that Wednesday might have to be the day this week as I have Lori Farlekis' buns staying with us as their floors get redone in their home and their walls are painted. A new friend of mine, Michelle L. had me sex her bunnies 2 months ago, as she wanted a friend for her girl, she went to the Milford mall pet store who swore that the bunny she was getting was a girl. It was a boy, he got her female pregnant, she stopped eating so I took her with me for a night and got her to Dr. Poster on Sunday morning as she was kind enough to meet with us and Daisy died on Memorial Day weekend after Dr. Poster tried the Oxytoxin to induce labor and did a sonogram for us to see if the babies were still alive. Pekachu is now happily living in their home with their neutered male. Our shelter's beloved Buttercup that went to her knew home last year with Margie and Cory, and then was bonded with Linus, passed away June 9th. Linus came down and was bonded with Sasha on the 10th, hopefully all is still going well. Ali and Lumar's Doggie Luna passed away suddenly. She will be missed.

We took in a total of 32 hamsters, 3 rats (home with Dr. Poster) and 2 gerbils and 2 Degus this month. Unfortunatley one of the Degu's passed away the very next morning with no outer wounds or physical reasons we could tell. My Chinchilla of 6 years Diego died on June 12th. We are still awaiting his full Necropsy results. We want a new friend for Dusty, but need to make sure that she is not contagious with anything. I know more has happened, good Lord, it's been a month! I'll try to get on things more, I miss writing.

OH! We had our 2nd annual Hop-A-Long Hollow Garden Party on the 10th. We raised over $750, had 3 rabbit adoptions and 5 gerbil adoptions. We also had aprox. 75 people show up, and it was a great time! Linda and Harvey are wonderful hosts.

Keep up the cell phone and ink-cartridge collections, we are in need!

That's it for now - thank you to all our volunteers who have been cleaning and dropping supplies. Without you, there is NO WAY we could keep going.

Brandee

PETCO- YEAH! Stasis Monster, Carmie, Milo, Ratties, Chloroplast

Hey,

Well, Ali just left with Lumar and Tarin (after Ali so graciously cleaned a few cages and helped with the disbursement of medication!)- the newest rattie adopter from our shelter. Tarin who took in Stewart and baby rattie boy, and Maria who took in the other two boys are both rat smitten. They are "crazy rat ladies," the perfect homes for rats! Both have huge cages, much bigger than they have been living in, and one with a stroller that takes her rats out for walks! YEAH FOR THE RATS! There are 3 more coming in tomorrow.

Milo, our newer head tilt bunny, gave me a scare. I thought his lack 0f a lot of poop in the cage meant he might be going into stasis. I think I'm just seriously used to the really big bunny's and their size poops... He is just fine, ate a whole bunch of parsley and romaine. Stinker. Stasis Monster (dwarf Cinnamon) has been giving Linda quite a run-around with his issues, I'll ask her to blog about it, he's just too much. Buster went into his appointment at the eye-specialist today and he can go off all eye meds. The cataract he has is apparently caused by trauma, probably the same trauma that caused his shattered jaw. He's good to go and he can't wait for Lilly (aka baby Laurel) to get spayed to be his new love. The Emerson's are a great and loving home. I am so upset I can't find the number of the guy who dropped him here, but I guess it is what it is and what is meant to be now, will be.

Carmie (of Carmie and Angel) started breathing heavy today and was taken in to South Wilton. He is being started on meds for an upper respiratory, probably the same thing all else have had since Cleo first came in. She has been in isolation for such a while now, we hope upon all hopes that all is contained.

Our meeting with Petco today re: Hop-A-Long Hollow adoptables going into 1 or more Petco locations was great! We are so thrilled to start working with Petco on a large scale partnership. They can offer amazing things for us to help get more bunnies out there adopted and more education to people looking to own rabbits or even to people who own them already that need to be educated more than by breeders or the lower line pet stores (aka. PSP) that are selling rabbits to make a quick buck (hey, the rabbits do all the work, then they sell their babies for profit and no education about the proper care).

Michele C. is coming by with the Chloroplast for the pens tomorrow!!!!!

Well, wish us well, and a special big thanks to Petco for all their hard work and help to get this started for us. We may be in there as soon as in 4 weeks! Thank you Tom, April and Scott!

Good night!
Brandee

Scruffy's necropsy, Thumpie & Spunky, Raven & Ivory

Well, it’s been quite a week. We got the results back from Scruffy’s necropsy. Dr. Pieper said the people who had him should be arrested and compared him to what would happen to a human in a concentration camp. He was starved, had urine scald and fur-mites (we know from when he came in) his kidney’s were a black-purple color and the size of dimes, his liver was 1/3 the size it should have been, his heart was smaller than it should have been, and we already know his teeth were a wreck. He ended up dying from not only all this pain he had been through, but also from a metabolic blood disease due to the abscess in his mouth. I am going to make flyers to hang all over Trumbull for information leading to the prosecution of his previous owners. I can’t tell you how upset it made me, but I was not surprised to say the least.

Raven and Ivory (now Pickles and Fuzz) went to their new home this evening. This was a very easy bond and I think for sure it will stay that way. Their new mom is totally awesome and these guys had a huge nic-cube condo waiting for them! Thumpie and Spunky who were neutered last week are OK together in a tight spot for now. Running around they are fine too, but a large cage causes indifference, so they really need time for their hormones to calm down. 2 rats were adopted today and 2 more are going out this week. We have a trio coming in this weekend.

The adoptions went much faster than I anticipated. I have 2 potential homes for the bearded dragons. My beloved cockatiel Mya went to live with my sis-in-law and her male Cockatiel Louie. I hope that this will not only give Louie company, but calm down Jack’s self-mutilation urges. I woke up this morning to one of my birds trying to sing “Pop-Goes-The-Weasel!” I guess my bird song tape might be working!

My Aunt almost died twice during surgery today, so if you can, she is now stable, but please, please say a prayer for her. It hits so close to home with her, I love her more than I think she will ever know.

I signed on to go into Hospice in Shelton and will bring Annabelle with me. I'm working on handling her more so she is used to me holding her as Arthur once was. If anyone would like to join me every couple of weeks, it would be great to have someone else there to handle an animal (maybe one of my chinchilla’s) and bring a smile to a grim situation.

I know that there is much more that happened this week, but my brain is mush, more so than usual, more like grits that oatmeal! Hope all is well with everyone and God Bless!

Brandee

Scruffy dies, WIC, Hamsters & Gerbils, Spunky & Thumpie, Carolina, Tilly & Thomas

OK, again it’s been over a week. It’s been a busy and hard week. Scruffy came here last Sunday, went to Dr. Pieper’s on Monday and went under to have all his teeth ground down, apparently his mouth was a total mess, but Dr. P said I did a great job getting all the puss out off the abscess in his mouth. Tuesday he was eating a bit, but Tuesday night he was just sitting hunched. I suspected that there might be blood poisoning from the abscess, but didn’t want to give up. I slept on the couch with him on Tuesday night, his head under my chin, both of us wrapped in blankets. Wednesday morning I just knew he was going, I took his temp and it was 98.8….Hypothermia. I got him to BAH when they opened, and he passed away at around 10:00 a.m. That just really sucked, sorry for those who don’t like the word, but it did. To lose him, after seeing his condition and having hope, it just hurt. Dr. P is doing his necropsy for us to find out what happened for sure. He had been seen by another vet the week before, and I believe in my heart if he was treated differently, medically speaking, he would have had a chance, the same as Jackie, my very first bunny. I’ll keep you posted.

I didn’t mention that Juliet was adopted last week yet, and also Carolina was adopted. Tilly and Thomas got spayed and neutered last week, and I have kept them together since, they were and awesome bond and the siblings went back to their new home this morning. I tried bonding Angela with Snowy, but they seem to really need more time being next to each other first, he just keeps on mounting her an driving her crazy. We will try again. This week I will work on bonding Spunky (Tink’s son) and Thumpie (Alise’s son) together. They were neutered last week as well. Wish me luck. If they don’t bond now, I will try them later too. Raven has been adopted, and she will hopefully be bonded to Ivory. Michelle M. who is fostering 6 for us now would like to take Cadbury for a couple of weeks to work with, so we will arrange for it to happen. It was a funny day Friday with Michelle M. I took her out on a typical day with me. I picked her up a little after 9:00am with 2 hamsters, 1 mouse and 2 gerbils already in the car. We went to Petco and picked up several more cages and had to maneuver them around to fit in 2 Guinea Pigs that we later dropped at Dr. Poster’s office, and 6 Gerbils and a dwarf hamster, not all in one cage, so it was a tight squeeze. We then went to HALH Norwalk and dropped the gerbils, hammies and mouse off then stayed to clean a while before proceeding to volunteer at Wildlife in Crisis. I got to clean a few bird and bunny cages, and then we were sent out to our big task of cleaning out the big Great Horned Owl cage. We cleaned, got covered in poop and collected lots of feathers. (I hope Michelle will come back with me next week!) We left to drop the GP’s after that, then I dropped Michelle at home in time to pick up her kids from school and then I went home to clean my own little critters. It was a day well spent, but passed to quickly. I don’t know what else to say right now but happy Mother’s Day to all moms, including all those that only have fur-kids. We all know what we put into it!

Scruffy, Meds galore, Sterling, Colorado, a Flemish Visit

Things are hectic, but there are more “light hours” in the day, so I guess I’m feeling better. There are 20 rabbits here, and 10 are on meds 1x or BID. It’s a lot of remembering… Penny, Butterscotch and Cleo get Baytril BID and a shot of Bicillin every two days. Heather is Baytril BID, Ivan Chloro BID and Otic ear drops BID, Ringo gets Lotrimin 1x a day, Milo gets Baytril and Otic drops BID, Cinnamon (dwarf) gets Critical Care (CC) 4x a day, Reglan 3x a day and Metacam BID a long with simethicone drops when needed. And then we have the new bunny… I got a call from Trumbull Animal Control that they had a bunny they just trapped outside that had puss oozing from its mouth and wanted to know if we knew of or had any antibiotics for this. I immediately thought of my first bunny Jackie and her facial abscess. I asked if I could take the bunny, and a volunteer there met me and I took him. He is a Rosie Ba-Dosie look alike, a grey and white dutch. He has a double eye infection, fur mites, he’s dehydrated, front teeth are crooked (probably back ones too and due to poor diet) and he is just the most beautiful and loving bunny (OK, maybe just because he is sick, he could turn into our old friend “Trouble!”) and he has a horrible abscess in the front of his mouth that I squeezed a couple of cotton swabs filled with smelly (ICK) gross and thick puss out of. This poor bunny… I can’t imagine a gaping hole in my mouth and trying to eat/drink and function comfortably with. I only hope it’s not into his jaw and in his blood stream already. I picked him up and gave him a Bicillin injection, 20cc’s of Lactated Ringer, 20cc of Critical Care, Promectin for his furmites, Gentak drops for his eye infection, and Metacam for the pain. The poor little guy has been so poked and prodded by me today, and still he wants to snuggle with me. That is the reward. I will do the best I can by him and ask for God’s assistance in it all. He’s the only miracle worker I know!

Fantasia found a parakeet out front of her store in Westport this week, it is residing with Chelsea. I bonded Fawn and Bandit this past week and will work on Angela and Snowy starting this evening. I have Tilly and Tucker here for their neuter/spay appointments tomorrow and Thumpie and Spunky are done and ready to go home (un bonded – too hormonal right now!). Juliet left to go to her new home yesterday. Sterling, 16 year old dwarf bunny girl of Linda’s, had to be put to sleep last week after having a stroke and losing use of her hind legs. She will be missed. Colorado left for his new home in the City, and a couple of weeks ago I had a special giant visit:

Ok, I’m going to head out, see if I can get that appointment with Dr. P tomorrow and remember what else is going on, I’ll write more.

Cinnamon #2, Claire, Annabelle, Rags, Thumpie, Spunky, Fawn & Bandit

Hey, well I wrote a complete blog, 4 paragraphs worth on Monday and lost it all, I was so upset that I waited these 3 days to attempt it again. On Monday I took a rabbit in through Barnum from one of their patients, his name is Cinnamon. He’s a 3 pound dwarf that has had $2000 dollars spent on him in the past 2 years to get him repeatedly out of stasis. His previous owner was feeding him things like oatmeal and lots of fruit because he liked them but didn’t like hay. So, without the hay in his diet he has had overgrown molars on a consistent basis and continuous gut-stasis. I have been force feeding him Critical Care, he’s on .7ml’s of Reglan 3 times a day and .18ml’s Metacam BID. Tonight was the worst gas yet (he’s on gas relief drops too) and I found a lump in his abdomen. I’m going to see if we can get in tomorrow. The lump reminds me of what Parsley #1 went through with the Mega-Colon, just not near as big, but just as scary for me, it’s probably his liver or something silly like that, but I need to be sure. He won’t eat anything on his own at all and I have also been giving him lactated ringer injections as he refuses to drink as well. I’m worried for him, but will do the best I can.

My boss gave me the day off, so I did some errands this morning and then came home and mowed the lawn, cleaned up the yard and brought Daisy, Rusty, Rags and Annabelle outside. Rags and Annabelle truly loved it and Annabelle kept going up and snuggling next to Major, our German Shepard. I got some gardening done and hung up wind chimes, bird feeders and cleaned out the garage. I felt I got a little something done today and all of us (3 dogs, a cat and the buns) being outside was wonderful. I love that my family gets along, I also like our very fenced in yard!

Fawn and Bandit are almost a guaranteed bond now which is happy news for both myself and their family. Thumpie (Alise’s son) and Spunky (Tinkerbelle’s son) got dropped off today for their neuter appointments tomorrow. Buster’s new family adores him and Lilac (Lilly now). Claire’s necropsy results came back, but Linda will have to write us on those, something about encapsulated MRSA. Shaylah and Steve are bonded. Ivan is still the same, but as happy as can be. I’m going to take him out back with me tomorrow so he too can roll in the grass and feel the Sunshine. Ringo’s ringworm is so much better that I think he’ll be good to go soon, to his neuter I mean, then to a good and loving home. Milo’s (related to both Ringo and Biscuit) head-tilt looked a little better to me tonight, wishful thinking? Annabelle and Dakota are due for their next bath to remove the rest of the mineral oil out of their fur.

Michelle C. dropped off 3 adorable dwarf babies this past week, 2 black girls and a brown boy, and she will be coming down next week sometime to bring her chloroplast donation to fit in the bottom of the floor pens, I am REALLY excited. This will keep any poop/pee off the floor and contained. It’s a happy dream!