The saddest time......

[lisalisa]

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How sad. No advice but lots of sympathy.

why is she dragging her legs? did the vet xray them?

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erm, incontinence has nothing to do with legs

our rabbit(house rabbit) sometimes seems to be covered in urine onhis back legs. sometimes its because we have been lax in changing his sawdust and sometimes its just coz he is a lazy arse and sits in the space all day long doing his "biz" without bothering about it. He is very old as well

sounds odd, i'd either take the rabbit for another opinion or post on a specialist site like this one if you have no more answers here.

i have only had one rabbit that dragged it's leg. it was broken and he had to have it put in a cast.

erm, incontinence can be to do with legs!

I'm not a vet, but my experience in humans leads me to suggest one of the following:

spinal tumour

spinal infection

spinal fracture

I doubt whether any of these could realistically be treated in a rabbit, sorry

Lisalisa, could you come round to the idea of a funeral for the rabbit? I would imagine it would help ds to be able to say goodbye properly, say a prayer over the grave, plant a flower, or paint a nice stone to mark the grave. It could also help him to deal with (God forbid) and human deaths he encounters in the future, if he knows roughly what happens...

sorry, i stand corrected!

I was thinking baldder rather than bone.

I do agree that you should at least try to get a second opinion

I would be honest and say sometimes illnesses can't be mended and it would be better for the rabbit to put it to sleep.

As you say - he needs to learn life's lessons at some stage - and in my experience kids take it much more matter of factly than adults do. just let him talk about it whenever he wants to and be honest.

Good heavens this sounds like a neurological problem, not a muscle one!

From what you describe I suspect a bleak outlook. I would advise a second visit to the vet, but I doubt that your rabbit will recover from what I agree sounds like a spinal problem.

From your son's point of view, a funeral or similar goodbye ceremony is important - and will help him if you can allow him to choose what he would like to do, for example he might like to plant a tree or similar. Death in pets, while difficult for parents to deal with, is a learning experience for a child. Try to avoid using any euphemisms (especially not 'he's gone to sleep'), just be honest and frank.

Sorry about this, when I was about 7 I had a lovely big white rabbit and at first he was dragging one leg then it was the other, the vet said it was some kind of paralysis in his legs and he would never recover. We had to have him put to sleep.

Although I was heart broken I did understand it was for the best and the rabbit was suffering. We left the rabbit with the vet to deal with. A few weeks later I got another rabbit which helped.

IME with animals the actual waiting and thinking they are going to die is worse than when they have actually gone. It helps to think you have done one last act of kindness and put them out their suffering.

Our ds was distraught when his hamster died. Ds was 10 at the time and was alone with the hamster who had what sounds like a sort of seizure, with blood coming out of its mouth.

We had a burial, put Tommy in a box lined with nice fabric, dug a hole out of the way a bit in the shrubbery, with his name painted onto a stone on top. We all said a few words and put some flowers on it.

Even now, ds is 13 and would still love another hamster, but he was so upset about it and still talks sometimes about how awful it was when Tommy died that we won't buy him another one as we don't want him to go through that again.

Not sure if we're right or not about that.

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I would remind you at this point that 2 months is a long time for a rabbit to be dragging its hindlimbs behind it. You will find sores developing on the limbs where they are in contact with the ground. In this time the rabbit will be unable to move around freely, and unlike a disabled human nobody can explain this to the rabbit. If something frightens it, it can't run away. If it's hungry, it has to wait until you bring it food (and as a grazing animal it should have constant access to food). It will develop urine scald on its hindlimbs, and as the bladder is not functiong properly there is risk of permanent atony and incontinence or even bladder rupture.

Personally I would seriously question whether it is acceptable to keep an animal in such a condition for a long period of time.

second vet not making sense!

Yes, I agree neurological problem affecting nerves to bladder and legs...BUT unless rabbits are VERY different to humans (and we are all mammals so not that different)the nerves to bladder and legs are within the spine, and so impossible to damage them by "trauma" without damaging the bones! Tumour/ infection could cause the right damage without trauma, but these are probably incurable! Do rabbits get slipped discs? I don't know, but I bet vets don't remove them if they do...so agree with CSB, if he's no better in a couple of days, then it would be kinder to the rabbit to have him put down

Sadly, I think the kindest thing would be to have the rabbit put to sleep.

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My dh's little brother had a paralized rabbit when they were younger, didn't have the use of his back legs and was also incontinent. Am not up on the whole story but it lived in the house and MIL gave him a bath every day (she reminded dh of this when we chose to have rabbits 10 years ago!).

I couldn't tell you if it was the right thing to do, I'm just relaying the story, especially as you say she's eating well - I was under the impression that animals who are ill/ in pain did not eat or drink?

I'll keep my fingers crossed for nibbles, she sounds very loved!

Our vet told us the surest sign they are not well is not eating and/or drinking, rabbits need constant movement in their guts.

So as yours is eating well, I sort of agree you should give her a chance, but I also agree 2 months is a long time to wait and see.... and their backends can get very matted and gungy if they can't clean themselves and lead to other problems.

My sympathies, a difficult decision

No experience of rabbits but wanted to add my best wishes and sympathy.

Just before the summer holidays I had to tell my 6 year old that the dog we saw every day, and who we all loved very much, had died and he just burst in to tears as I did. He drew some lovely pictures and wrote some beautiful words to give to the dogs owner and she was very touched.

If the rabbit does have to be put to sleep maybe your son could do a similar thing to leave/bury with the rabbit?

So sorry to hear about your rabbit, lisalisa. We had to have our deeply loved dog put down when my dds were 2 and 4 (or possibly 3 and 5) so they were a lot younger than your ds. We just said that Bobby was very old (he was 16) and very poorly and that he had died. We didn't tell them that the vet had put him to sleep because we weren't sure they'd get their heads round the idea that she had effectively 'killed' him. Your ds would probably understand something of the idea of 'quality of life' though and might appreciate the idea of saving her from further suffering. We don't have any particular religious belief so we gave the dds a version of Twiglett's glove analogy (hadn't seen it at the time, but arrived at something similar). We said that Bobby's body was old and tired and had died, but that he'd always be with us in our memories of him and all the funny things he did and that we would always remember him and therefore he'd always still be with us, but just not in a physical way. We had him cremated and scattered his ashes on his favourite beach. But we didn't involve the dds in that - we felt they were too young and I didn't really want to have to explain how their beloved pet had got turned into the box of ashes iykwim. They didn't ask what had happened to his body, thankfully.

HTH. I hope that Nibbles is OK.

Lisa - the only thing I wanted to say is that a pet funeral is actually quite 'nice' - ds2's hamster died, and he put her in the shoebox and buried her under some pink bluebells in the garden - yes he was in floods but every spring when the bluebels come up he remembers her. It's not morbid, it's sweet really.

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Poor Nibbles, and your poor DS.

One of our rabbits died recently and DD1 was distraught for ages. I agree with NAB3 that if poor Nibbles was to die, getting your son to write about it is good. My DD (9) wrote various poems and stories and diary entries in the days following the rabbit's demise and it did help. She spontaneously wrote that the rabbit was still with us, living "in the air". Make sure you have some good photos of the rabbit, too.