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Who is responsible?

Hugo's There

Wise Old Thumper
This is something I have always found confusing and wondered if there is any hard and fast rule.

When you are helping with a bunnyrun for someone else and the bun stays over, if it gets sick who is responsible?

We have been involved in a lot of runs where buns have stayed with us either over night or for a week or more. I guess its because we are right in the middle of the country :) But it has always worried me about who is responsible for getting and paying for treatment if the bun becomes sick. At the end of the day even if they are stopping over at ours they are not my buns.

Once we had a really sick bunny here and I had to wait over 24 hours to get permission from the organisation involved to take it to a vet. The poor bunny died. Although the outcome probably would have been the same without the delay, it is not a position I would want to be in again.

There seems to be a lot of bunny runs happening again and we are more than happy to be involved but just wondered what the situation is with poorly buns. :?
 
Interesting question. I've taken part in bunny runs and not given this a moments thought :oops:.

First thought is that as the mere transported of the animal, the bunny runner is not responsible but then that leaves the question of who does it fall to i.e. the previous owner or the would be owner.

Interesting....
 
I guess you could ask your vet if they would expect you to pay for the treatment as you took them in OR if they could send a bill to the registered owner.

If paperwork has been signed then I would assume person responsible is the new owner, if no paperwork has been signed then the responsibility would lie with the rescue. :?
 
Funnily enough, I was only thinking this yesterday (no idea why!) I think it would be a very good idea to sort those things out in advance if the bun is staying over-night, ie permission to see a vet at your own discretion and who will pick up the bill.
 
My vets and others that I have used will say that ultimately I would be responsible for the bill if it is sent to the new owner or the rescue and they didn't pay it. With my vet bills sometimes reaching £100 a week we could not afford to pay a bill for a bunny that isn't ours.

Also some buns are being rescued from a situation and taken to a rescue rather than from a rescue to a new owner so at that point no-one really owns them :?

I have also where a bunny has been here for a week inbetween being rescued and a new owner, one bun seemed off colour, I contacted the owner to be and said can i take it to the vets and they said no as their vet was cheaper :(

I can't just take someone elses bun to a vet for treatment without permission if it needs pts or has an op and dies I could be sued :?

I also know of people that have helped with buns and taken them to the vets when they have needed treatment as the new owner has said they will pay and then have gone back on their word
 
I also would have thought that the new owner (or the person at the eventual destination, be it owner or another rescue) would be responsible, however I think it would be a good idea to clarify the position on this before the bunnyrun takes place that whilst the people involved will take good care of the bunnies whilst they have them temporarily in their possession, any vet bills will be the responsibility of the new owner.
 
It's definitely a huge grey area (ie of ownership), and the person looking after the bun is taking all the risks. :(
 
I have also where a bunny has been here for a week inbetween being rescued and a new owner, one bun seemed off colour, I contacted the owner to be and said can i take it to the vets and they said no as their vet was cheaper :(

That is terrible! I can see your dilema, and to be honest that would make me reluctant to have bunnies stay over :?
 
I don't know if that bunny made it to the vets but I do know that it didn't live for many months after the bunnyrun :(
 
I've thought about this before. I would get whatever treatment was necessary & put it on my account at the vet & contact whoever necessary with the bun run. I think I would keep bun until someone had paid the bill though:oops:
 
I would say that the person it is going from is responsible for any cost until the bunny arrives at it's destination. If you think about it from a pure "commodity" point of view, if you bought an electrical good and it was damaged in transit, even if you had paid for it in advance it would still be the responsibility of the company selling it to you to get it repaired.

Obviously if going from rescue to person the individual may be happy to foot the bill and would hopefully volunteer & if it is going from person to rescue it may be due to lack on funds in which case I'd hope that the rescue would step in.
 
If a rabbit requires vet care you would be obligated to take the rabbit to a vet. While its in your care, even temporarily, then you have a duty of care under the Animal Welfare Act. Failure to act (eg take it to a vet), resulting in the rabbit suffering is a criminal offence.

Although ideally you should consult the owner/rescue first you don't need permission to go to the vet. You would need to act on the vets advice only so you have evidence that care was required should the owner later complain. Animals are considered property by the law, if you look at treatment of strays, for example, euthanasia/neutering would come under the Criminal Damages Act where as providing necessary veterinary attention to prevent damage (death) would be excluded.

Regarding payment, it's down to the vet whether they want to demand payment at the time or are happy to bill the owner/rescue. If they want you to pay and the owner later refuses to pay back you could take them to the small claims court.

It is a good idea to establish something in writing first, that would certainly making avoid potential issues easier.
 
So basically it is a complete legal nightmare :(

I guess it would be the RSPCA who would prosecute under the animal welfare act?
Yet is was the RSPCA I was helping when I had to wait for permission to get the bun treated. Although they were at mine for a few days they legally belonged to the RSPCA as they were going from one RSPCA rescue centre to another.
 
I think it should be the person who is adopting the bun. I also kif they are wanting to adopt from somewhere further afield they should be responsible for sorting their own bunny run and should be financially responsible for the bun from the moment it is collected.

It gets very complicated when rescues and people all try to work together to organise transport and could be made much simpler if the person adopting had to sort it out themselves.

Bunny runs are a great idea- they can just get over complicated at times.
 
This is one of the reasons we don't do bunnyruns. The rabbit is in limbo until it gets to the new owner. If no papers are signed, it ould turn out very awkward indeed :?
 
when i help out with bunny runs if a bun was sick in my care i woul take to the vet and if i had to cough up then i would find a way as i coudlnt face that bun being ill or their death on my concionse, however i would make best attempts to contact the owner adn organisation to come to an understanding with costs if at all possible. i havent been unlucky enough to have buns in limbo who have becoem ill but i can see why there would be a genuine concern. mainly the runs i have helped with have been from rescue via others through to new owner i would sasdly expect that the rescue would help with costs as i would also expect the new owner to help too. i am very wary of transporting buns showing signs of illness already due to risk to own bunnys so dont usually do these however i can understand bun illnesses can appear without notice so could happen to anyone. i think that if u are worried about it try and get a signed agreement from rescue if its come from there or going to there for payment of bills or from owner if jsuta s impe rehoming. if its a rabbit going from a desperate situation to somewhere else then the somewheere else should be asked to sign on the line to put ur concious at rest.
 
when i help out with bunny runs if a bun was sick in my care i woul take to the vet and if i had to cough up then i would find a way as i coudlnt face that bun being ill or their death on my concionse, however i would make best attempts to contact the owner adn organisation to come to an understanding with costs if at all possible. i havent been unlucky enough to have buns in limbo who have becoem ill but i can see why there would be a genuine concern. mainly the runs i have helped with have been from rescue via others through to new owner i would sasdly expect that the rescue would help with costs as i would also expect the new owner to help too. i am very wary of transporting buns showing signs of illness already due to risk to own bunnys so dont usually do these however i can understand bun illnesses can appear without notice so could happen to anyone. i think that if u are worried about it try and get a signed agreement from rescue if its come from there or going to there for payment of bills or from owner if jsuta s impe rehoming. if its a rabbit going from a desperate situation to somewhere else then the somewheere else should be asked to sign on the line to put ur concious at rest.

In an ideal world that would be great, but ofetn so many people get involved or they are such last minute things there is no time to organise paper work, also don't know how legally binding any paper work would be:?

My concern was that the bunny needed surgery which of course I had to agree to at my vets but if the bun had died under anaesthetic would I have been sued by the new owner if they had signed an adoption form from the rescue making it legally their bun and they hadn't agreed with the surgery :?

It is also great saying that you would pay out to stop the bun suffering but you also have to be realisitic, our vet bills are very high and they are a struggle to pay, if we then had to suddenly pay out £100's for treatment on a bun that wasn't ours it is taking funds away from our bunnies which have to be our priority :)
 
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