Sanctuary Rabbits: Glenna "Unfinished"

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Glenna "Unfinished"

The other day in looking at Miss Glenna Bun, sitting in a ray of sunlight streaming in through the window, it occurred to me, as light glowed around her spiky ears, that she looked like a painting left unfinished. Many of the old masters, and even contemporary ones, would purposely leave a work unfinished. Mary Cassatt did that once or twice and it was thought to show the rest of the painting had a depth and dimension which critics were expected to quickly dismiss. So the unfinished part of the painting was the artist's way of saying to the short-sighted critic who would be long forgotten while the master painter's works would live on and gather appreciation over the decades and centuries, 'well, do you prefer blank canvas? then be appeased.' But really the unfinished part of the painting forced the viewer to appreciate the richness of those parts of the canvas graced with pigment by way of the stark contrast between blank and painted canvas.

So that is what I thought of suddenly, one afternoon as the sunlight filled her little ragged ears like glass cups which had been shattered on the rims - she was "unfinished" and those unfinished parts of her, the ears, made me appreciate the rest of her all that much more. And so when I snapped this little photo of her in a similar light, her lips stained bright pink with carrot juice, making her look like one of the women Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec might have painted (oh my!), I couldn't help but render it with a quick digital colored pencil. Her sweet little expression is still clear though. And that part is complete.

Soaking Up the Love - or is it just begging for another Barley Biscuit?

She likes to lie next to me while I work on my laptop and have me stroke her ears. They have some fur growing on them. I have this intense compunction to sprinkle them with gold glitter and paste a few rhinestones on them. Maybe for Halloween! Stay tuned!


 -RabbitPhotog

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Sanctuary Rabbits: Earless Glenna Eating Normally! Loses More Teeth & BES Budget

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Here is the update on our now famous Miss Glenna. Yes, Glenna has become somewhat of a celebrity. And rightfully so, she is the POSTER CHILD for why rabbits should be house pets. Love your rabbit? Don't want their ears to look like this? Then let them in the house and let them stretch out on the hearth and luxuriate in life!

Glenna was rejected by other rescues and more. From the moment I first heard about her, it was like she had the grim reaper hot on her trail wanting to swing his scythe in her direction. First she was rejected for her molar issues as they are expensive and will continue to be for a little while longer, and we have a lot of rabbits here with molar issues. It's one of the expensive aspects of caring properly for a pet, vet bills.

Then Glenna was given a poor prognosis for her TMJ disorder; she couldn't open her mouth. How could she eat? She did lose weight, it was hard for me to tell what was happening, it was gradual. And she refused any kind of assist feeding, just spitting out her Critical Care. So I put it in a bowl for her, a low, shallow bowl, so she wouldn't have to hold her sore little jaw too high to eat, and she fed herself and soon regained all the weight that had been lost and more! She just wanted things done her way, so I let her take part in her care and she did her job.

Right this minute, Glenna is down the hallway eating pellets like nothing has happened. Her post-surgical recheck from having her incisors removed went well. Her totally wonderful exotics vet needed to do a molar trim, however, and her molars on one side of her mouth were loose and some diseased, some growing in strange ways. So they were removed (see photo); three of them. I was told all of them on that side will come out as they are ready. The molars on the other side are fine, looking good! That's all she needs, she could do fine even if she had no teeth at all because, as I have learned during this entire ordeal, rabbits have prehensile LIPS and can use them to pick up their food!

So this is wonderful news! I'm still going to assist feed Glenna every day until she tells me to stop it. And I'm sure she is still healing and needs some pain meds and her acupuncture appointments will continue for a while. But for the most part, the main hurdle has been cleared and Glenna is eating hay and pellets for the first time in probably FIVE MONTHS! So what caused this TMJ disorder? Well we think it was her horribly misaligned incisors, which were removed, and probably those molars too. The point is that Glenna is now looking at a potential FULL RECOVERY from this over the next month or so. No more assist feeding. Just molar trims for the loose ones until they're able to be pulled. They can't pull a healthy tooth so until they're loose enough, they can't come out.

How is Glenna handling all this? Well she is doing great! She's happy! She drinks a lot because she likes to pee a lot so she can make the other bunnies smell her (some of them drive me nuts with this behavior, uses lots of Carefresh, you know?), she is smiling. Yes I can tell when she's smiling. She just looks all smug and happy and relaxed and spoiled. So this little earless waif is now a princess with an albino tiara and vassals everywhere she looks. And that's fine because we love Glenna! She is one of the most incredible critters we've known. And we've known a lot.

Sanctuary Rabbits: Please Help Glenna Get Her Incisors Removed!

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8:09PM FRIDAY 3/12/10-WE'VE REACHED OUR GOAL FOR GLENNA'S SURGERY. But if you are still able to donate, we have outstanding vet bills

for Oliver, the former lab rabbit (who we also need to order Adequan for), and Galadriel, an elderly dwarf who is part of a dwarf trio, and we are almost out of hay. So we need to purchase enough more local hay to last us until later summer. And Glenna's ongoing care (molar trims) are always a concern - so even though we've reached our goal for Glenna's surgery, please consider donating toward our work! Thank you so much from all of the twitching noses of Bright Eyes Sanctuary! To go to our main site, click on the Running Bun logo above and you can view our foster rabbits and donate from the Help page there as well or just click on the ChipIn thermometer below. Thank you!

Here it is, the fundraising thermometer for our special little Earless Glenna's incisor removal. The approximate cost is $500. That is an estimate from the vet, however, we are pretty sure there will be extra anesthesia involved due to the complications from Glenna's existing TMJ disorder - she can't open her mouth! One person has already donated $100 toward her surgery but we're hoping that just covers any extra expense from the aforementioned complication.

Glenna is such a little trooper. To sum up her story quickly for anyone not familiar with it: Glenna was a stray and a Good Samaritan tried to capture her for several months. Finally, the Good Samaritan was able to apprehend her in August 2009. The Good Samaritan also happened to be a vet tech and took her to work where they discovered she had fly strike or "warbles." That means flies had laid eggs under her skin and this is a fatal condition if not treated.

Then that vet hospital tried to bathe her because she had an odd stench to her which it took a while to identify. She was also covered in urine stains from other rabbits - and being a white rabbit, this was quite noticeable. These stains were also the cause of the stench, we have rescued buns soaked in urine before but none had been quite so saturated as was little Glenna. When the vet tech bathed her, her ears "washed right off" as the vet tech put it. Apparently, Glenna had been a stray since at least the previous winter as this was evidence of frostbitten tissue.

That was when the Good Samaritan called us and told us she could not afford to care for Glenna since she also appeared to have not only molar malocclusion but also incisor malocclusion. That means her molars would need regular trimming, which can be costly because it has to be done under anesthesia, and her front teeth would also need this although that is not very costly as it doesn't require anesthesia. So we took Glenna in, had her "warbles" removed, spayed her so she wouldn't get uterine cancer, and took her for regular molar trims.

Glenna did very well and soon took over the household as the "main event," befriending dogs, cats, guinea pigs, birds, and especially humans. She was very happy. But then her incisor malocclusion began causing more problems for her, eventually leading to her current TMJ disorder - which is practically unheard of in rabbits - and got to the point where she could not even open her mouth and she lost a whole pound out of her four pounds.

One very young vet she saw recommended a nasogastric feeding tube, which in our opinion, is not an acceptable option. She also recommended euthanasia since she was unable to open Glenna's mouth to trim her molars and said that Glenna was virtually "starving to death." So we took her for a second opinion at our region's most experienced exotics vet (Dr. Scott Stahl of SEAVS in Fairfax, VA, who had a very different opinion!) and started her with weekly acupuncture appointments with Cynthia Clarke of Hands on Health in Rockville, MD. She also started being fed a shallow bowlful of Oxbow's Critical Care mixed with baby carrot food and phytonutrients (Dr. Schulze's Superfood Plus) two to three times a day which she helps herself to by slurping it up with no assist feeding required. She has since DOUBLED her weight and is working on a chin and a butt dewlap! She has a tremendous will to live. But she still cannot open her mouth!

However, and this is a big however, she no longer requires any pain medication every day or at all thanks to the acupuncture! AND not only that but her molars are getting better and only need trimming every two or three months instead of every month! This is thanks to the phytonutrients I added to her Critical Care which I've used in the past to help other small mammals of Bright Eyes Sanctuary overcome the malnutrition and/or malabsorption which originally caused this conditiion. And the molar issue will continue to resolve with continued nutritional therapy.

So here, finally, is the matter before us. I have to come to strongly believe, after doing a couple of Glenna's incisor trims myself (after instruction from the vet) with a Dremel and a tongue depressor, that her incisors are so badly maloccluded, with the upper ones growing inward and to the left and the lower ones growing up and to the right and left, causing her to always have to hold her lower jaw as far to the right as she can, that with all of these incisors removed and a few more acupuncture treatments, her TMJ disorder WILL RESOLVE. The wise doctor has recommended their removal regardless since rabbits who have these diseased teeth are at risk for having them abscess anyway. And this vet has performed this procedure many times.

Then Glenna would be able to resume the normal activities of eating hay and a little pellets and fresh veggies. I have been worrying about her getting a fur blockage with not being able to eat any hay although Critical Care is finely ground hay, it doesn't provide the same mechanism in the intestinal tract to bind and pass the fur through the system as regular hay which she would normally grind with her molars.

So please help and contribute toward this one last surgery for her so she, as a young bunny of only about two years or so, can thrive and live a long, happy life here at Bright Eyes Sanctuary and also serve as the Poster Girl for why rabbits should live in the house and not in the backyard hutch!

Thank you for your consideration. And please be aware that Bright Eyes Sanctuary, Inc. is a fully approved IRS nonprofit, all volunteer, animal-welfare charity and your donation is 100% tax deductible! Every penny will go toward Glenna's surgery and/or continued care, i.e., future molar trims, cost of Critical Care. You will receive a tax donation receipt for your donation - and a big warm, fuzzy feeling that you have helped the saddest little stray bunny story ever heard have a very happy ending! Just click on the fundraising thermometer above and you will be directed to make a secure PayPal donation to Bright Eyes Sanctuary for Glenna's incisor removal. Thank you!!!! And stay tuned here to Running Bun to hear about how Glenna is doing.

Sanctuary Rabbits: Glenna Gets Acupuncture!

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Here is our darling rabbit heroine, Glenna, in her carrier after she has just finished her first acupuncture treatment on Wednesday, January 13 with the wonderful and gracious Cynthia Clarke at Hands on Health in Rockville, Maryland. Cynthia holds a Maryland Certification in Animal Acupuncture. She was wonderful with the little Miss Glenna and it was also wonderful for Glenna to have a positive experience associated with a trip in the car. I must say that I am astounded at how relaxed Glenna seems since her appointment. She had seemed to not be eating quite as much but since the appointment, she is back to heartily eating her Critical Care recipe which includes phytonutrients (Dr. Schulze's superfood in this case), crushed Oxbow Barley Biscuits, and Organic Gerber carrot food. And so she continues to put weight back on after her initial weight loss.
Glenna will go back again next week for another appointment and she will go in as necessary for as long as she needs. Cynthia gave Bright Eyes Sanctuary a generous rescue discount for her services and who could meet Glenna and not have their heart go out to her? Glenna, of course, soaks it up. I softly mentioned to the acupuncturist that Glenna appears to love to be petted and will sit in your lap for an hour or more soaking up the pets, but this is really a type of alpha behavior. Just like a little dog who sits in your lap and wants you to have your hand on top of his head all the time, this is perceived by the little dog as you kaotaoing to him.

Glenna is the same way and I realized this rather quickly upon first meeting her. I would have her, a small dog who behaves the same way, and a big cat who is the same way as well, all sitting on the bed with me while watching TV and each one wanted my hand on their head the whole time. That's fine except I only have two hands.

I have to say though that Glenna is the first rabbit I've met who acts like this. Usually, alpha rabbits don't demand pets this way but she does. She probably thinks she's a dog.

Anyway, back to the acupuncture, I am really excited about this for Glenna and she has a molar trim scheduled for the Monday after her next acupuncture appointment and I am anxious to hear what the vet will have to say about things at that point. Keep your fingers crossed for little Glenna!

Sanctuary Rabbits: OK Glenna Fans, Get Your Fix!

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Glenna had to stay in her cage for the last half of Harry and Trinity's bonding because her hopping around made Harry jealous and nervous and he acted like she was a ghost or something. Glenna has gotten that kind of reaction from a few other buns who look at her ears and are freaked out by them. Poor Glenna. Here she is stretching out in her favorite spot on the bed. I don't worry about the little pills left behind, the dog eats them before I even get a chance to lie down. Dogs love rabbit poop.

Doesn't she look comfy wumfy? I get sleepy just looking at her. She loves to snuggle too. Me and DH will be watching some TV and she just has to be in the middle and snuggle. Then along come the dog and the cat who are jealous and want in on the snuggle action and then we have quite a menagerie!

Glenna is the funniest, most animated rabbit I've ever met. The other day, DH gave me a cookie with confectioner's sugar on it, and darned if Glenna wasn't in my face in a flash with ready to lick the sugar right off my lips! She is such a chow hound! She's a love hound too, she just loves to be loved and she loves everyone and they love her.

Sanctuary Rabbits: Glenna Goes to SEAVS' New Location!

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Here are a few photos of the beautiful new hospital at SEAVS (Stahl's Exotic Animal Veterinary Services) new location in Fairfax, Virginia. It is just beautiful! Bamboo accents and a faux bamboo floor present a calm, soothing atmosphere. Earthy green and brown tones adorn the walls as do gorgeous primitive artwork from exotic locales.

Little Earless Glenna and I trekked down to SEAVS (Stahl's Exotic Animal Veterinary Services) new location in Fairfax, VA week before last so Glenna could get an exam and evaluation by Dr. Scott Stahl. Dr. Stahl is one of the top exotic vets in the mid-Atlantic and I have ended up going to him for help with some really tough cases dating back to 1997 when he was at Pender or that part of Pender now referred to as Eastern Exotics (which earned that name by virtue of the fact that he was the chief vet).

Glenna suddenly lost a lot of weight and I assumed it was because it was time for a molar trim, but it was more serious. Glenna went in to a different vet at first for a routine molar trim and came out, for the second time, with no molars trimmed and a report that they were unsuccessful in opening her mouth for the trim, apparently her jaw was frozen shut. Some recommendations were made to me which did not sound good to me and I took her to Stahl instead. He was able to open her mouth enough for a trim and Glenna was much relieved. He also palpated her entire jaw and said she has no tooth root abscesses. The pending diagnosis is an attack of e. cuniculi on the bone - or a type of osteomyelitis (bone infection) in the temporomandibular joint or TMJ.

Glenna's jaw joint is badly inflamed and she has trouble eating hay and pellets. In humans who have TMJ disorder, chewing can become painful and eventually the TMJ ceases to work and the person cannot open their mouth. At that point, the human can have the jaw joint flushed or more invasive surgery. So far, it appears Glenna is having a similar problem with her TMJ. This is most likely due to the fact that her upper and lower jaw are so misaligned. She has been chewing with a crooked mouth for a long time.

I attempted to start assist feeding Glenna with Oxbow Critical Care, the high nutrient formula exotic vets give to their clients to encourage a bunny (or other herbivore) to eat when they're not eating well or not eating at all. I used a 60cc syringe to feed her the Critical Care but she would just swish it around in her mouth and spit it out. I had to come up with some additional ideas to tempt her to eat. So I put some Gerber Organic baby food, carrots, in the Critical Care.

It worked but still she didn't want to be assist fed so I just put the Critical Care (CC) in a shallow bowl, a cat food bowl, for her. I wanted the bowl to be shallow so she didn't have to strain her neck and it would be easy for her. This idea worked and soon she started eating four bowlfuls a day of CC. This is a lot of CC! But that's all she's eating. However, I did catch her eating one leaf of hay this morning. We ran out of the carrot baby food and she wasn't interested in the bowlful of CC. When I spied her chewing on the hay, she froze. She didn't want me to think she's eating hay ok. I might stop giving her CC if that were the case.

So whether she can open her mouth or not at this point doesn't matter anymore. All she wants is CC and the carrot baby food. That's fine, she can eat CC for the rest of her life if she insists, but it is expensive! It will cost about $25 a week just for the Critical Care! And she gets it all over herself too so I have to pluck the dried clumps of CC off her chin and paws.

She's pretty happy though and with her metacam every day, her discomfort is reduced and so is the inflammation in her jaw. She is on two antibiotics, chloramphenicol and Bicillin (PenG) injections to combat what might be an e. cuniculi attack. Dr. Stahl took some blood and sent off for an e. cuniculi titer but the results aren't back yet. Earlier bloodwork she'd had looked pretty good and not indicative of a bacterial infection.

So stay tuned for more on Earless Glenna. If her e.c. titer is positive, then she will go on Panacur for 28 days which has been shown to be effective in combating this insidious blood parasite. E. cuniculi strikes many, many rabbits and can cause various kinds of paralysis but most often hind limb paralysis as well as other neuromuscular symptoms. Perhaps the most insidious attack of all results in head tilt. But head tilt is not untreatable. We've had bunnies get that and make complete recoveries so that you could never tell they had head tilt.

If Glenna's jaw paralysis is not caused by e. cuniculi but rather just plain old muscle tension from such a maligned joint, then eating the Critical Care should have given her TMJ a good rest. But we are also going to look into acupuncture for her as this was suggested by one bunny guru I consulted with as a possible source of relief. So was massage but I want to wait and make sure the cause is not infectious first because massage may help spread the infection within the body, and we don't want to risk that until she gets on the e.c. treatment first.

Stay tuned! I'll tell you one thing folks, Glenna loves life and she has a tremendous will to live. She has already been to hell and back and we're not giving up on her. This little gal is the poster child for why rabbits should live in the house! Frostbitten ears, warbles (fly strike), parasites and predators are all reasons to keep your bunnies in the house!

Glenna sure is glad to be here in this house! And we'll keep her happy and comfortable as long as we can and we won't listen to anybody who doesn't know her as well as we do. Glenna wants to live!

Sanctuary Rabbits: Glenna - Becoming Accustomed to the Life

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Well enough people have been inquiring that I better post an update about Glenna. And then I'll post one about Bojangles' pending adoption later. Yay for Bojangles!

Glenna has settled into her new life here at the Sanctuary and we are all fond of her. She licks me a lot but she is also known for little nips now and then. That is only if I'm standing in her way though. Usually, she is wonderful. She has developed a special tactic for demanding her Oxbow Organic Barley Biscuits or her daily carrot or pellets - she stares me down and skulks until I acknowledge this and comply with her wishes.

She is also a trouble maker. And a scallywag. But she has earned it. When she comes out to get her exercise, first she beelines to Sparty Macaw's cage in the living room to see if he has dropped any of his yummy (and fattening) Harrison's pellets. Or until I discover her absence and go fetch her. Then she hops on the bed and explores it thoroughly for crumbs I may have dropped - of popcorn (a favorite), or anything else. And if Felix the Schipperke is up there too, she usually says hello to him by bussing him on the nose. I can tell she genuinely likes Felix (pictured above with the earless princess) as do most of the bunnies and kitties around here, but she used to fear him when first coming here - probably from her days as a stray and being wary of dogs. Felix is a shepherd breed (they're really miniature Belgian shepherds) so he is very protective and gentle around all the little animals.

When her crumb scavenging is completed, she goes to the box under my end table and digs around in the packing paper and takes a nap - this is so like a cat - that's why the box is there (for Max the Maine Coon). She is content to spend quite a bit of time in her box (see photo above).

Last week, Glenna went in for a recheck. She needed another molar trim and she had her incisors trimmed. One of them isn't growing so Dr. Carr said we probably should have it extracted soon as it might be prone to abscess. And I've been thinking about having them all out. She can't use any of them, they curve at wild angles, they're useless.

She also has been flirting with the boy buns over here so we'll have to think about matching her up with one soon. At first, I thought she might have a crush on my little bunny, Sundance, who is quite a handsome little Netherlands dwarf. But upon meeting him, she kicked his butt and he didn't appreciate it. So she probably would appreciate a larger fellow. We'll let you know if anything gels in that department.

Well I have the flu, so I'm off to nap some more and hope for better days. I'll keep you posted on anything going on with Glenna as it happens. But let it stand as testament to why rabbits should live in the house, Glenna's poor missing ear lobes which succumbed to frostbite.

Cheers to all!

Sanctuary Rabbits: Earless Glenna Update

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Just a little update on Miss Glenna Bun. She is doing very, very well. She is still being confined per the doctor's orders and she has just about had enough of it. Every evening, she demands her carrots (now that she knows what they are) but she knows she's going to get medicines first so she motions her head to the 2 syringes on my desk and looks at me. She wants her meds so she can get her veggies!

I've brought her up on the bed several times now to watch some TV and she doesn't seem comfortable. I think she is still apprehensive about the little dog and big cat who are often up here too but whom are 100% totally bunny trustworthy. She is slowing getting that into her head. She must have been pretty scared of dogs in the past though as a result of some experience with them.

STENCH EXPLAINED
When Glenna Bun first came in, I was told she'd been sprayed by a skunk 'or something.' No one who smelled her seemed sure what it was. Neither was I when I smelled her after the 'surgery' smell wore off. But I knew I'd smelled it before sometime. Well I remembered now. She has just been absolutely soaked to the bone in rabbit urine. She smells just like the 11 rabbits I helped animal control in nearby West Virginia confiscate from a backyard breeder four years ago this summer. They were sitting in milk crates in 104 degree heat in the July sun sitting in 5 or 6 inches of their own waste and urine. They had been drinking dew although a few had chewed up water 'bowls' (which were really just the bottoms of gallon milk jugs cut off) and they all smelled so bad it was unthinkable. And when I got them all home, I had to give each one a hot bath with lots of hand soap. Yet still they reeked for months afterward until their first shed. Glenna also has the telltale signs: urine stained fur all over her. It is impossible to remove urine stains from a rabbit's fur; you just have to wait until they shed.

Glenna smells like that even though she's had two descenting baths. When the a rabbit has been so completely doused over and over for long periods of time, that is what they smell like. She also came in with a spot on her nose that has the distinctive mark of a rabbit bite. She'd been bitten pretty badly on the nose but came away without serious (i.e., abscess) injury. It's unclear whether the abscess she had removed from her back was from flystrike (warbles) or the bite of another rabbit. It is in the right place for a rabbit who is being bitten by another one who is humping them. And she shows evidence also of having had a litter (or two or three or more) in the form of long teats.

She is a very patient lady though and obviously feels safe as she naps all the way over on her side. When she wakes, she looks at me hopefully as if to say 'pellets now?' but she only gets about a tablespoon of pellets per day. That's because of her double whammy malocclusion - incisor and molar - so she needs to eat mostly hay so her bite can correct itself.

EARS EXPLAINED
Her ears are turning white at the tips and I don't know what that means, it may just be fur growing in or something else. I'll talk to the vet about it on Monday. It might mean further necrosis but usually that's black although this may be the first stage. I did take some macro photos of her ears so I could study their structure while I prepared to flush the ear's of old lady Beatrix who has an ear infection. One of those photos is at the bottom of this page so if you dare, scroll all the way down and you'll see it. I didn't put it right under this post because it may be upsetting to some people.

A number of people have asked me about her ears wondering how this happened to her. Most people's first reaction was 'did a dog attack her?' and that answer is no - a rabbit attacked her! Rabbits are like that when unaltered. What happened to Glenna is that her ears were frostbitten. Considering that it's August and she has only just come inside where rabbits should live, she has been a little hobo for a long, long time. Or it may have very well happened before she even escaped the place where she used to live - they probably kept their rabbits outdoors, that's pretty much a given. Or this would not have happened. And it's why we never condone this heinous practice. If you do a Google search for 'frostbitten ears' you will find images of lots of animals whose ears look just like poor Glenna's.

OTHER NEWS
In other news, I have an excellent application on Mrs. Bojangles and am looking forward to her happy ending.