The Demetri of Many Colors

Seeing him appear on my father-in-law’s blog reminded me that I haven’t made any comment on Demetri’s current condition.

Demetri will be turning nine this year. Depending on who you ask, sterilized rabbits living indoors as pets can live anywhere from eight to twelve years. My personal experience leads me to believe ten is a more reasonable estimate of lifespan, but since I’ve only had three bunnies pass away in my care (one died young from disease, and the other two were around eight when they went) I suppose I’ll collect better data as the years pass.

But at any rate, Demetri has had a “terminal” diagnosis since he was four or five (I honestly don’t remember at this point). His problems have all stemmed from dental infections brought on by poor breeding (much like many breeds of purebred dogs, rabbits bred for their flat faces and lop ears have a lot of issues). In a somewhat fascinating (and disgusting) turn of events, the infection migrated to his chest cavity and formed an abscess from the inside out. It grew from undetectable to pretty awful in less than a week. He had just been at the vet for his monthly tooth trim (required since his teeth no longer grind themselves down after some had to be removed due to infection) and there was no sign.

An operation was successful in cleaning him up fairly well, but he has to go in for bandage changes three times a week (which my wonderful husband has been taking him in for, since I’m in the midst of tax season and can’t get away).

He has been purple…

… blue…

… red (I don’t have a picture of that one, but he looked like an extremely tiny and fuzzy Santa) and pink (pictured on my father-in-law’s blog http://too-old-to-know-better.blogspot.com/).

It’s hard to justify to people who haven’t had rabbits why we’d go to so much trouble for the little guy. But all I can say by way of explanation is that he brought us a lot of joy in his more active youth and we’re certainly going to take care of him in the best way we can now that he’s a little old man.

Demetri in 2004: