It's been a roller coaster ride.

Owning rabbits as pets is a little like putting a puzzle together without all the pieces. The vets have of one set of pieces. The breeders have another. And sometimes your own control group holds more pieces than both of them apparently. But you can't have all the pieces at once.

The past three weeks have been sucking on this blog because all my energy has been focused on figuring out what happened to my girl, and how to get the healthiest new bunny I can find on the planet. And as much credit I give the breeders, they can sometimes be a really difficult bunch to deal with. They are fairly uncommunicative, and I've been without a pet for the first time in half my life.  This has been super frustrating.

It turns out my girl inhaled food which caused her lungs to fill with fluid and die. Secondarily she also had e. cuniculi. Which is a disease that I have tried with all my fiber to avoid. I mean, I can't even explain to you how hard I try to get a rabbit without this disease. But I guess some things you don't learn until one dies and you have to get them cut open to find out what happened. Most people will not do a necropsy because it's expensive. And even I have only had two rabbits where I paid to have this done. They were very sudden and bizarre deaths. Both had e. cuniculi. As I have found out - I likely have a "one and three" chance of having a rabbit with it.

The woman who did the necropsy is apparently a legend in the house rabbit world. I guess at one point they started testing all the rabbits that came through their shelter and 33% were hot for this protozoan. The last time this swept through my house I had everyone in the house tested. I had one negative in a sea of positives. And fully 90% of the rabbits tested in my control group had been exposed to varying degrees. Also note - I have only tested roughly half of the rabbits I've ever owned. Likely my control group infection was much higher.

People will give you conflicting stories about how long this bacteria survives and how it can be transmitted. Some people say it can stay alive forever. Others only in the contagion period. I wasn't sure if I could bring a new rabbit into my house until the spores had died. As I said - I am at 0 rabbits right now.

Also, at a 33% positive hot rate, I wasn't sure how I was going to find a healthy rabbit. That is a lot of percent. The only comfort came when I read one of my old posts. I had that negative living right in the middle of bunnies with varying positive titers. I also had a positive that later tested negative. And most of those lived into old age. the 9-11 year range. I thought just being exposed to e. cuniculi was a death sentence. But now I think I'm going to have everyone tested and take a different approach.. Which is also something most people won't do. It's expensive. I'm still trying with all my might to avoid this disease, but that might not actually be a realistic expectation.

So... right now I could be driving to Oregon and Southern California in a couple of weeks to restock my brood. Yes, I'm probably getting two from different breeders because if you've lived with pets, and all of a sudden you have no pets - it really kinda sucks. You have no backup to cry on. Preliminarily I'm going to name them Time Bomb, and Insurance.

I don't really like to blog this stuff because it makes everyone sad. But I need to so other people can see you can really have bunnies that live to normal old age with this bacteria inside them because even I had forgotten. Or in case I need to search my own blog when another one caves.

Take two.

A few days ago my vet called me with what I thought would be lab results for Lacy's E. cuniculi titer test. Instead she told me that the lab had changed how they ran the tests and now they were only sort of giving a pass/fail test. So, I couldn't really tell what her level of infection is. They only sort of give you a range. Not an actual number.

When my vet pushed back the lab said - well, what does she care what the number is - the bunny is positive. I think my vet managed to say something like - thanks professor obvious. We already knew that. And remember.... this is a 200 dollar test.

From the labs point of view I should stop testing because she was positive and will always be positive and I'm probably wasting my money because she is a throwaway pet. Which I could be. If she had "the diabetes" they wouldn't ask - well, what do you care what the number is? And clearly she doesn't understand the luxury of time when a rabbit is sick. You literally have one week to figure this crap out before the rabbit either lives or dies. And I would lean heavily on the latter. When a rabbit finally starts showing illness - it's almost always a fight to the death. That plane is in a tailspin and you have to get that rabbit out of it. Your success rate is gonna be less than 50%.

I mean, when she comes down sick (and one day she will) - she will be treated in a completely different way now because I already know she is positive. When a rabbit is in distress and you are force feeding them medication three times a day it can really be quite overwhelming for them. You are trying to get them to eat and take all the meds. Sometimes you are force feeding them.

So to have one less medication that you might need to give when that time comes is really valuable - I think. Keeping her non symptomatic positive is the goal. Most people only find out about this when the bunnies are symptomatic and by then there is a 50% chance you are too late.

My rabbit is wearing a contact lens. No - seriously.

When I have problems with my rabbits, I never talk about it here until I'm less stressed. I am just not into the sympathy, but rather want to add to the searchable knowledge database.

So...

A couple of years ago my rabbit Saffron was diagnosed with genetic glaucoma. Which really sucked. You see, we'd already been through the glaucoma route with Jane Doe. She's a stray that showed up on our doorstep.

Soon after taking Jane in - she started having a problem with an eye. We took her in and found she had an ulcer. After treating her for a while, the eye specialist told us we should consider just taking the eye. At the time I was really afraid to do it. My general feeling was - I am going to save this eye. The ulcer was successfully treated, but her eye had already developed glaucoma.

After about three years the medication stopped keeping the pressure down and the eye decided it wanted to leave on the 4th of July. Resulting in an emergency removal.

When Saffron was diagnosed, we decided we were going to take the eyes right away. From everything the eye specialists told us, we could keep the pressure down for a while - but positively those eyes would have to go some day. At this point we'd actually had four different doctors tell us this. So we just wanted to rip off the band aid. If the eyes needed to go - they needed to go. Now, later....what did it matter?

Despite this, we couldn't get a doctor to take a seeing eye. And, the awesome thing about genetic glaucoma (said in the most sarcastic way) is the eyes advance at different rates. The second eye didn't go until a year or more after the first. Potentially the one eye can be super fucked up, and the other might still have sight. So you have to go through two surgeries or wait till both are relatively blind.

Skip forward to earlier this week. We went to dose Saffron and her good-ish eye was completely wet from discharge. This was a rapid change from even the night before. We take her into bed every night for snuggles. So it wasn't something we had just missed before. Rabbits have almost no tear production. Which is why glaucoma is such a problem for rabbits. The compromised eye is prone to ulceration. Which is why we didn't opt for laser surgery for they eye. Yes. Laser surgery.

When the discharge didn't stop we resigned ourselves to it "being time". I was super stressed about the two holidays I had to get through and I'm going to be out of town at the beginning of the year. I didn't want to have to put her through a middle of the night emergency visit. Plus, emergency has to keep your pet for two days. That is super stressful for a rabbit. Especially those as coddled as mine.

So I booked an enucleation appointment. She was still discharge-ey, but it wasn't an emergency. If there was any sight - it was in the one spitting out discharge.

I get to the eye specialist and she tells me sometimes glaucoma in rabbits will burn themselves out. Which I had never heard or read before. She was the 5th doctor I seen specifically for this problem. And let me point out - would have been really helpful to know many years ago. Removing both eyes is psychologically messed up. It is one thing for your pet to go blind, but to actually go through the process of removal is rough. Super stressful. Having said that - with Jane we wished we had removed her eye a little sooner.

Honestly, I'd been preparing myself for this moment for years. It isn't that they look all that different. It was just the image of her face all shaved and filled with stitches that would just grind at my gut.

Still, this specialist did not recommend removal at this time. Not only that - she gave me a 75% chance that Saffron could live the rest of her life without having them removed. I wouldn't give a rabbit a 75% chance of anything. Life is very uncertain with rabbits obviously. But those are pretty good odds.

At first I was pretty skeptical - but both of Saffrons eyes reported pressure readings of only 4. A normal eye is 10, and an eye that had to be removed right away has a pressure of 40. Saffrons pressure was less than a normal eye. Meaning that she wasn't experiencing any pain.

She does have a slight ulceration on the cornea. I guess the glaucoma can cause calcium deposits that cause this. But she gave an 80% chance of fixing that.

The specialist put in a contact lens which I guess acts like a band aid. It is suppose to help the eye heal better. I'd never heard of rabbits wearing contact lenses. Imagine if you could have cats eye contacts in rabbits! I hesitate to even joke about that, because I don't want people effing with their bunnies eyes. Consult a vet dammit.

So, Saffron still has her eyes. And she might even get to be weaned off medication. Go figure. It seems that Glaucoma in rabbbits really can burn themselves out. I still would have liked to know that was a possibility way earlier. You can't imagine how much extra stress the constant watch for when the right time to remove the eyes produced.

I was having a failure to bond.

The new girl has been in the house for a little more than a week now. She has yet to get a name. Naming convention around the snarkolepsy household is pretty contentious. Mr S. wants to name them after food or old people names. I want to name them after strippers. Our last girl Jasmine took two months to name. You see who won there with the name... right?

I'd been in a fairly consistent funk because the first few years with a rabbit...... it's not the greatest. If they weren't cute and all I might not do it. They are like puppies for like 4 years. They chew everything. They can sometimes be a challenge to potty train. And it can take them a while to start spitting out the kisses. It just sucks having to start over because we'd just gotten our last girl to 5. Which means she was past the terrible twos, threes, and fours. They are nothing but love at that point. But it's a little rough to get there. In the beginning they don't even care if you exist.

When the new girl arrived she didn't act anything like a baby. She was acting a lot more like a veal rabbit. And I was pretty bummed about it because our last girl was a little like a tank in size and personality. The new girl had absolutely no personality.  Which was a new experience. Every time we gave her a chance to run around she wouldn't. She was really low energy. Remember I didn't chose her, I was bequeathed her. This time I went to a particular breeder for the best chance of a healthy rabbit and she gave me one with no choice to see it's personality. For three days she was like that and I was freaked and bummed. We actually brought her home a week earlier than they usually let to go. She was 7 weeks not 8. So we thought maybe that was the reason why.

Velveteens are known for being a really chill breed, but she was being ridiculous. Now after about a week we have been able to stuff some personality into her. You never know how much is them, or you rubbing off on them. In her case - it's all us baby. But she is about as opposite of our last girl as you can get. She is more like our first Velveteen Paisley. She was delicate, but this new girl takes delicate to a whole new level. (I'd link pictures, but That part of my blog is still broken. Maybe I will get to that tomorrow)

Next week after the 100 degree heat clears I'm going to get blood from her. All new bunnies get blood draws now because they can harbor landmine viruses that explode later in life. You don't even know until they get sick. So right now I'm calling her Turnip. But that name of course is not going to stick. You never see a stripper names Turnip.

You mean if I would have just chosen fancy chickens I would still have a pet?

Yesterday Mr S. wanted me to go to the fairgrounds this morning because after this weekend the bunnies will be cleared out from the fair. I was sort of resistant because I wasn't sure what I was going to do there.

Him - Well if you want to get leads on Velveteen Lops you have to go tomorrow because all the bunnies have to be cleared out this weekend for the fancy chickens exhibit next weekend.

Me- You mean fancy chickens have a whole convention just for them? How the eff long can a fancy chicken live to warrant a whole weekend? It better not be longer than 10 years or I'm gonna be pissed. So I went over to google and about lost my mind.

Me - guess how long fancy chicken last?!

Him - 4 years.

Me - 20 effing years! That is a cruel irony of life. I can't even believe that. How can that be possible?

You can't just go down to your local pet store and find a Velveteen. You have to go hunt them down. So I guess I'm boarding the crazy train tonight and driving to Reno for a rabbit show tomorrow. The rabbit world is always a little weird. It's a very quirky group of people. It's interesting from the outside, but you don't want to spend too much time there.

It could take me a couple of months to find a replacement for my girl. So you might hear a lot about crazy rabbit shows for a little while. It's the only thing I'm focused on. I'm petless. So nothing else matters.

Call me Maybe.

So...... yesterday I got my new bunnies blood test back and she has e. cuniculi. I figured if I couldn't get a negative rabbit from the breeder I got her from, a negative rabbit probably doesn't exist. I think it's a dirty little secret in the rabbit world. And the truth is, unless you are a shelter, you just aren't going to test rabbits for this disease unless there is already some problem. And by then it's probably too late since the blood work takes a week to get back. I've found out that some shelters have reported 100% positives.

Most rabbits can live without symptoms their whole life. But this disease is like a time bomb. A positive reading doesn't matter until it matters. Then boom. Dead.

The good news is we know early before she is sick so we can at least try to kill some of the protozoan before it can do very much damage. Right now her titer is at .0735. High is 2. Low is somewhere in the range of .035. It's a good thing she can tolerate blood tests because I predict she will have a bunch of them over her lifetime. A rising titer is a very bad sign indeed.

We still haven't decided on a name. We might call her Maybe.

Oh - there will be blood.

I took my new girl in for a blood test today. She still doesn't have a name.

This bunny is chill in a way that is confusing to us. I just threw her in one of those bags you are forced to use for shopping. Well, I usually get mine from trade shows, so they have sorts of different shapes. This one looked more like a thin computer bag. We traveled sort of Joey style. She is super good at that. Other bunnies would have jumped out and chewed their way through. But she's chill.

My vet does think I'm a little nuts. No one takes blood for a rabbit who is healthy. But so far I've talked to five people about e. Cuniculi, and they all give me different answers. My vet today basically thinks the immune system will either fight if off or they die. Boom. Like that. She leaned towards dead. The woman who did the necropsy said it was treatable. She's the one that started testing every rabbit that came into their shelter. So I lean more towards her knowledge because most pet rabbit owners will not spend the money to have them tested. Although my vet is very good, a shelter is like a vet hospital on steroids. There are just more animals to test.. I don't think there is really any consensus on how to treat or what their lifespans will be if they have it. It's sort of a time bomb. If their immune system doesn't fight it they cave. I think the real answer is we are all still trying to figure e.cuniculi out. Which is why I'm testing now. She after all has a 1 and 3 chance of having it.

Oh...... I see you've been reading the internet.

I started experimenting with my new bunny yesterday with Panacur. And I'm kinda scared to tell my vet honestly. Doctors of all sorts frown on self treatment these days. Don't they? I think most of them have a real unhappiness with all the medical advice floating around the net.

The thing about e. cuniculi is there is no consensus on what to do about it. I think my vets position is that the immune system will fix it until it doesn't. Most wont show symptoms anyway. It isn't even known if treating it will kill all the protozoa or if you need to retreat them from time to time. Some people think you should treat no matter what just in case.

I've taken the position that I would rather try to treat her now while she is healthy. I think the immune system probably keeps it in check (usually). But if their immune system gets a little weak it probably takes advantage of that weakness and multiplies.

I'm sort of in this weird position between vets and breeders. The breeders want to treat aggressively, and the vets not so much. Even the very respected house rabbit vet who did the necropsy on my last bun only recommended treatment if the rabbit showed signs. The hard thing about that though is once they show signs you probably don't have time to get the blood work back before the rabbit is dead. Which why I tested my new girl as soon as her little body was big enough to give blood. When they are sick - they are not foolin'-  and time is short if you can't fix it fast.

I would have had better content for you... but -

A couple of weeks ago when Mr S. and I decided we wanted to replace Paisley with another velveteen lop, we didn't know how much of hassle this would be. We see them from time to time. We didn't think it would be a big deal. However breeders are actually quite fashionable when it comes to breeds. And this breed is not in fashion right now.

It's actually a little worse than that. A velveteen rabbit is a rabbit crossed from and English Lop and a Rex. You get something that looks like an English Lop without the ridiculous ears. It is a recognised breed, but not a registered breed. And with no prizes, no real traction in the breed. As I've found out, if you enter a breed and you fail, you have to wait three years to re-enter. If you happen to get accepted, you have to have two successive litters to make sure the breed stays true to the form.

So, what I'm saying is... it takes a shitload of time.

As we've found out, there might possibly be only a handful of breeders in California. And, it seems that the breed has really small litters. Making them even harder to find.

It took us all week, but we finally found a doe an hour north of L.A. We arrange to hook up. I was going to do L.A. in a day. Drive down and back.

Last night as we were getting in bed at 9, because it was going to be along day - the breeder texts us. The litter mate was sneezing and had discharge.

Now, the thing about rabbits is they have all sorts of bacteria inside them. Most can live very healthy lives with it. However, most of these bacteria and protozoa are ticking time bombs. Just waiting for the right trigger. And you never know what the trigger is going to be.

L.A. breeder knew her sneezing litter mate probably had pasteurella. Which is one of the more frustrating bacteria. It usually attacks the inner ear. Giving them head tilt. Or sometimes they will completely loose control and roll over and over and over. You can't do anything but put them down. Sometimes it can be managed with antibiotics - if you catch it really early. Still we haven't found those with it don't live extraordinarily long lives. If that is what the litter mate has, the other one is also quite likely infected.

So, now we are back on the hunt.

Why even bother with this breed you ask? It's one of the few breeds that have only one set of hairs. Most rabbits have regular hair, and guard hairs. These breeds shed like crazy. Since these are indoor bunnies, the reduced shedding is a huge deal. They also have a lot of funny quirks I'll probably explain later.

Where else is a guinea pig gonna keep her credit card?

Our plan was to check out the rabbit show down here and then head over to the chalk show in the little Italy section of town. So far I've only made it a little more than a mile from where I'm staying.

You see, I think I've just been to the CES of rabbit shows. A truly stunning amount of bunnies. When I close my eyes I just see rows and rows of bunnies. I thought this thing would be about the size of my fair and then Mr S and I would be off to do other things. But I spent about 4 hours at this thing an not because I was ogling tons of bunnies. There were just so many of them. Literally thousands I'd guess.

I'm basically trying to shore up sources for one breed. Velveteen's are really not easy to come by right now. I mean they are out there, but it's not as easy as you'd think to get someone to let you have one.

Initially I was sure I was going to get a spare because when Jasmine kicked it I was without a pet for about three months. And it kinda sucked. But I'm just not sure I want to make Lacy jealous yet. Yes, even bunnies get a pecking order and their behavior can change. Lots of times for the worse.

Anyway, even though this story about bunnies, I'm not going to give you any pictures of that. Instead you get these guinea pigs because I've never seen this before. I'm not into cavies(guinea pigs) they were just there.

They got their hair did yo. I guess they do this because their hair gets all tangled. Which has got to be a ridiculous amount of work for a pet. But what can I say? I'm in San Diego trying to find breeders for Velveteen lops. I don't have any moral high ground.

Experimenting with Lacy.

We lost our last bun to E. Cuniculi. It's a single cell protozoan that infects their brains and kidneys and can cause a host of heath problems often resulting in death. Here.

Since our last girl was so young when she died we had a necropsy and found out a lot of stuff about this protozoan.  The doctor who performed the necropsy had also run a shelter and had started testing all the rabbits that came in. It was then we found out that probably half of house rabbits probably have it and people never know until they (the rabbit) gets sick. (if then) Testing is a wee bit pricey. So most people aren't going to test.

With Lacy, we decided to have her tested as soon as we could when she was a baby. I think we tested at 8 weeks. And of course she turned out to be positive. We decided to treat her even though she absolutely has no symptoms.

The whole thing is sort of new territory for my vet. I mean, usually people don't know until it's too late and nothing can be done. If then. Most will not pray for a necropsy to find out what happened. But my last girl was only five - so I was paying to find out what took her so early. Vets aren't even sure how effective treatment is.  They don't have enough research. Anyway....

Yesterday I took her in for her third blood draw. Her titer (infection) level had still been still rising.  But the whole thing is a little weird because she is non-symptomatic positive. But she's completely healthy.

This article is mostly for other rabbit owners who may run across this one day. All of my rabbits are going to get tested when they are babies now. If I can slow it down a little bit - that's what I am going to try. Some rabbits live very long lives with this illness. One of the longest living rabbits I've owned was positive or at least exposed. But other times it can take a healthy five year old bunny within days.

Your gonna poke your eye out!

The hazard of bunnies - is everything can be fine one day, the next, not so much. And, it's even better if its an extended holiday weekend. That makes them laugh and laugh.

So this morning we woke up and Jane's eye was obviously having a problem. Her white margins were really red. She was keeping it closed. For an hour we debated on weather we could do something, or if we should just take her in.

We decided to separate her from Willow because he was licking her eye, and we hoped that was the cause for the extra inflammation. Within about a half hour we realised she had to see a vet. She was having a ton of discharge, and Willow was masking it by keeping the area clean.

We knew our vet was closed. But we didn't know about back up emergency vet was also closed. So, we had to hunt around for someone who had a rabbit vet on staff today. This was doubly sucky, because we already knew there was a good chance we were at a point of no return with the eye. It always fun having to take your pet in for major surgery to a doctor you've never seen before.

Eventually we found a rabbit vet 30 miles away. And Jane is there now. The eye can't be saved. She will be there for two days. Sucks.

My weekend.

I'm sporting two vet visits in two days. I got back from my conf on Thursday and my girl Jasmines eye was super weepy. Since it was late, I put in some artificial tears and and figured I'd have to take her in the next day. But the next day she was completely dry and looked almost fine.

On Sat she gone off her kibble a little - so I had to take her in. By the time bunnies show signs of having problems - you've already got big problems. I was praying I hadn't pulled the glaucoma lottery ticket for the third time. To my relief she only had a small ulcer on her eye. That is fantastic news for a rabbit. I mean, in the scheme of rabbit things. The two other possibilities were way worse. An ulcer was pretty stellar news. That can be fixed.

Then this morning Mr S. woke me up early to look at her because her eye was totally messed up. It was cheesy and red and much worse than yesterday when she'd gotten a full round of antibiotics. She should be going the other way. So I'm basically home bound to keep an eye on her. No pun intended.

When you give it all you've got.

Life never, ever tires of screwing with me. It must find me entertaining. And it's times like this that I wished I believed in god - so I could cream f-u@! Don't you see how hard I work to do the right thing?

So, we took Saffron in today to the specialist. She does indeed have primary glaucoma. Which sucks on so many levels. One, she is so sweet and doesn't deserve this. Two, she can't be bred - and yet has all those qualities that you want in a pet. No we aren't breeders. We've neutered all our rabbits. But, when they pass - the thought always crosses our minds that it might have been nice to have some of the traits we loved so much. Saffron is up in the top 2 of those traits. Three - since it is an inherited thing, getting another from the same parent line comes with the possibility of the same. Also screwing up the idea of getting a pet with the same traits.

We did like the Veterinary Eye care place in San Carlos. The place was clean. Not next to a Chinese food restaurant. Modern. All the things we like in a vet. However - after we got the diagnosis. We asked about having the eye removed. Absolutely not = they said. She can still see. Yes, we know she can see - but there is a 100% chance the eye will die and it would need to be removed, right? Yes, but we aren't going to remove a seeing eye for your convenience.

Which is somewhat problematic for me. Okay - not somewhat. Really problematic. Now I know that most people don't take good care of their rabbits. Rabbit owners have to fight the bias that they aren't neglecting the pet. Some of that is completely warranted. Some isn't. Despite your best efforts, they hide things until they can't hide them anymore. No matter how hyper actively vigilant you are. And let me say - this eye still looked pretty damn good!

So, I understand where she was coming from. But, what does it even matter if it was for our convenience or not? If it was for convenience - most people would neglect the medication. Which would result in the eye swelling enough and possibly rupturing. Resulting in the eye needing removed anyway. Lets not even mention the last minute panic of trying to find a qualified rabbit vet. How for arguments sake is that better than just removing the eye now? There isn't any way of getting around that this eye will be removed. Now, later. Without medication. With medication. There is just no getting around it. And Oh BTW - we were willing to pay for laser surgery if it would have helped. How is that a neglective pet owner?

I hate the idea of taking the eye. Hate it! But, they eye is slowly dieing. And with rabbits, these things don't always happen at a controllable pace. Some days you wake up that the eye is just gone. Or effectively gone. This is just the way of the pet. The can literally cave in one day. I've had Paisleys allergies flare from nothing to a golf ball in 4 hours. That eye will loose sight. 100% chance. So why torture her for a year or two years trying to control the pressure?

It is just so odd. The first place we went to with Jane freaked me out because Jane could still see. Yet, they were completely ready to take the eye. I said "screw you - you aren't taking this eye. I'm fighting for it". And for three years I did. They never said the eye had an expiration. Now that I know it does, I want to do the right thing and just take it. If the other place didn't have so many creepy things going for it, I'd take her there.

I'm just really bummed.

The queen of lame.

She says "don't make fun of her"! She can't help it if she's allergic to her own skin.

If any bunny owners ever click on this link who have a rabbit with allergies - please email me at she_said @ comcast.net. Not sneezing allergies. But real life hives. I'm not kidding. It is such a unique problem that I would love to hear from anyone else that may encounter it.

Some readers may remember me talking about her having an allergic reaction way back here. We'd taken everything from her diet and her ear and chin was looking magnificent.

Until we gave her one yogurt drop. She had an immediate allergic reaction. I'm still convinced she can't tolerate petroleum based products. Yeah.. that's right.

I don't even believe rabbits can have allergies. I mean really. If someone told me their rabbit had allergies, I would think they were a kook. But it seems to be true. She came very close to needing surgery because she had such a reaction.

Thankfully benadryl shots got the swelling down. But can you believe that crap? Shots! I told you I have some odd stuff here at the house.

Stumbled on.

I'm not sure exactly what they do. Here. But I was curious about their rig. Especially the lidar from Quanergy. Lots of people are trying to get into the cheaper Lidar business - and they are one of them apparently. Previously Velodyne had been cornering this market, but their stuff can be pretty pricey.

But hell, for 250 bucks maybe I want to buy one. Strap lidar on my rabbit.

I've never been so excited about a yeast infection in my life.

I'm going to come right out and say that my coping mechanisms are completely broken. But, evidence suggests I'm not alone. When I get drunk dialing calls from people I'm barely even associated with - I'm guessing people are having a hard time.

The caller whom I know... was batshit drunk and threatening to loose his mind. Mr S. felt bad for the guy and wanted to call him back. I proclaimed loudly "I'm tired of being the worlds babysitter. He isn't dying, he's just fucked up. Let him figure his shit out". Of course, maybe it wasn't the nicest thing I could have ever done.

But, I present this. My land line is very close to a doctors office number. So, we get a ton of old people trying to get a hold of the doctor. As if that isn't enough - he does something that causes people to call and leave messages about their loved ones being in the emergency room. So.. of course, I need to call those people back and tell them they've dialed wrong. Which I hate. Mostly because it makes me think about grief, which I've been trying my whole life to block out. I've filled my quota. I just don't want to deal with it. But, I'd be a complete asshole if I didn't.

Next, I'm done with taking care of peoples f-ing dogs. You know what? I love dogs. But, I'm so tired of having to deal with them. I owned dogs the whole time I was growing up. And you know what? My dogs never got out. They used to have a kushy lives in the house. Our dogs were never getting hit. Our dogs were never jumping fences into the neighbors yards. OUR DOGS WERE NEVER BARKING ALL THE TIME PISSING OFF THE NEIGHBORS.

So, when one of the neighbors dogs got out the other day, I resisted helping. For 20 minutes I watched a neighbor from down the way, try to get this dog back into the back yard. Finally I gave in and went to help. What do we get? Well, Mr S. got nipped. And normally that isn't a big deal. It is a dog for f's sake. But when the guy got home and I told him his dog was out, and had nipped Mr S., the neighbor didn't even express concern. F him. And F all the dogs getting out. I'm not going out of my way for another one of them. None of them are grateful someone helped to make sure their dog didn't get run over. If they don't care. I don't care.

Lest you think my titles are back on the suckiest path ever. I was forced to take Paisley to the vet today. It was one of those things that my junky(as in drug addicted) rabbit couldn't get her meds until I had a checkup. It had been a year, and her allergies were flaring up in an annoying way. Turns out her little vagina of a neck has a secondary yeast infection. So while she is still having allergies, the yeast infection is probably making things worse. So, now I'm having to put something quite like monostat 7 on her chin. No shit.

But, at least I have a problem I can tackle. Rather than a random I'm allergic to air kind of shit.

Lastly - I suck for not replying to my commenter's. I'm sorry. Coping mechanisms and all. Feel glad you even got this update. I'll get back on track though, because I do appreciate that you even bother to stop by and take time to post your thoughts.

Behind on everything.

On Sunday I visited my saved bunny even though he wasn't ready yet. I was trying to find out what his affection level was going to be. As I was trying to coax kisses out of him I noticed he had a slight under bite.

Under bites are a huge problem. It means there is a very good chance it will grow up with a malocclusion. His teeth wont wear on their own. I will have to trim them.

Everyone will tell you that isn't that big of a deal. It's totally a huge deal. Once you get past the lips and tongue, and get ready to cut - up will pop a skin fold. On both sides which move independently. It's like playing mouth twister. If you had to do this a couple of times you could work through it. Over the lifetime of a rabbit it's a pain in the ass. Especially in the advanced years.

We never fell in love with any of the bunnies there. Which is why I was back on Sunday.

Yesterday, Mr S. and I decided what we really wanted was another velveteen without knowing the other had. He'd apparently been searching for a breeders all day. As had I. When we met up, we were both like - I really want a velveteen!

Apparently, this is a pretty hard breed to find here right now.

I didn't think it was a common breed, but I didn't think we would need to scrub the whole California breeder list to find any.

Right now it looks like we could be going on some very long road trips. Near LA, or inland near Yosemite.

It's so frustrating how far the grubby hands of government reaches into your life.

So - I took my girl Lacy to the vet today because she has the sniffles a little bit. Normally you go to the vet and you walk out with antibiotics and you get on with your life.

Now apparently the government doesn't let vets compound their own medicine which they have been doing since the dawn of vet time. The compounding basically is just adding flavoring to the antibiotics to make it so your pet doesn't freak out by the taste.

Now I have to go four cities over to get my effin medicine. There is only once place in my area that does it. I could have it sent by mail apparently, and while this bout of sniffles is not an emergency - usually when a rabbit needs antibiotics - it is a full out emergency. You need to get them on it right away.

If they are sick they could die in a day or two. No exaggeration. Now I have to be anxious about real emergencies and I need to start making some kind of plans to work around that. Vets can be open late. Pharmacies not always so much.

The government could have just made it so the tech who was compounding had a special certification. But no. You just aren't allowed. So Obama.

In search of a band aid.

The thing that took me out of posting this week was - Paisley died on Monday. And I've just been shitty about it all week. She was probably the funniest rabbit ever. She hated chap stick. She would make all these funny faces when I'd wear it. And I just don't even want to go into it now.

I got her to nine years - but you people who have cats and dogs, at least you get 15 years or so. No matter what I do, I can't stretch their time lines. And it sucks.

So I did what any rational person would do - find a bunny replacement. Well, I didn't so much find a replacement, but find a candidate. It has two different faces - so maybe he is funny. Next weekend I will find myself in Stockton at a bunny show to see if he was the best candidate. For now there will be periods of shittyness.

This one isn't ready for two weeks. And it's a boy. I normally name bunnies stripper names. Mr S. - food names.

There are no male stripper names!