Anyone else with concerns about your vet? What do you do?
All my rabbit knowledge, such as it is, comes from Rabbiting On, looking on the internet, and from this Forum since we got Ec and I started to search for answers I wasn’t getting from vet. We went to several different vets at our nearest practice and had mixed experiences. We have almost never been given routine care advice such as about diet, danger of gut stasis or anything like that. We’ve learned everything ourselves. One marvelled that ours were 7 and 9, saying they almost never saw one older than 4 or 5.
A lot of the things I had to suggest myself having read about here on the forum.
For example 3 days after good initial recovery from his first ever tooth rasp our 9 year old began dragging hindquarters. I knew there was something specific, but the vet said he was just a bit weak after anaesthetic. It was only after I kept asking questions that they thought of Ec, and gave Panacur, not with Metacam. Again, after I pushed, he was given Metacam.
Some of my concerns: On 3 occasions—different vets, the table has been visibly smeary and only partially cleaned, or has had visible hairs on it. On another occasion with this same vet, because of my previous experience—I screwed up my courage and asked her to wash her hands before she handled bunny. She was really offended-- she washed her hands and cleaned the table in a very patchy perfunctory way and told me tartly that rabbits ‘are not likely to pick things up’ then added ‘It’s all very clean and sterile here.’ She then went on to use a fluorescein strip in one eye (which happened to be the one which had been infected)—then before I realized what she was doing she used the same strip in his other eye.
It is very hard to think quickly enough at the time and not put people’s backs up— but I now take a piece of plastic in with me that I can cover the rabbit carrier with walking through the waiting room, and put on the examining table before they get the bunny out.
The eye infection started the day after a visit to the vet. When I mentioned this I was told—oh rabbits don’t pick things up—his immune system was probably a bit low. On other occasions when I have alerted them that his VHD is out of date (due to being too frail to inoculate him recently) and he might be vulnerable, I have been told by different vets that they don’t get see rabbits with VHD because they die so quickly. But vets MUST come into contact with the virus—which can persist on clothes and surfaces for months. Years ago we had to have our 10 year old rabbit put down with suspected VHD.
So I feel the whole hygiene culture at the practice is quite lax. Even the ophthalmologist had hairs on the table from the preceding animal--when I would have thought with all the stuff she was doing to his eye that hygiene was important. Another vet, when the Ec began, was about to put rabbit on the floor to check his mobility---(I luckily had a tarp with me that I quickly put down). Presumably with dogs walking in to the examining room many vets gets a bit casual about hygiene on floors and tables. But the only sick animals we know our rabbits are exposed to are at the vets. So why don’t they take hygiene on board?
We don’t feel we can change practices---I think we've found one vet at the practice who I trust more than the others, but the practice itself does not make me feel confident, particularly if we need an emergency op for our elderly rabbits. One of ours in particular hyperventilates and stresses so badly when he goes to vet, even with his mate, that we are always afraid he might just die of stress. So we feel we need to go to one very nearby-- with long open hours, one with a hospital and 24 hour monitoring available.
Anyone have similar experiences or advice? Shebunkin
All my rabbit knowledge, such as it is, comes from Rabbiting On, looking on the internet, and from this Forum since we got Ec and I started to search for answers I wasn’t getting from vet. We went to several different vets at our nearest practice and had mixed experiences. We have almost never been given routine care advice such as about diet, danger of gut stasis or anything like that. We’ve learned everything ourselves. One marvelled that ours were 7 and 9, saying they almost never saw one older than 4 or 5.
A lot of the things I had to suggest myself having read about here on the forum.
For example 3 days after good initial recovery from his first ever tooth rasp our 9 year old began dragging hindquarters. I knew there was something specific, but the vet said he was just a bit weak after anaesthetic. It was only after I kept asking questions that they thought of Ec, and gave Panacur, not with Metacam. Again, after I pushed, he was given Metacam.
Some of my concerns: On 3 occasions—different vets, the table has been visibly smeary and only partially cleaned, or has had visible hairs on it. On another occasion with this same vet, because of my previous experience—I screwed up my courage and asked her to wash her hands before she handled bunny. She was really offended-- she washed her hands and cleaned the table in a very patchy perfunctory way and told me tartly that rabbits ‘are not likely to pick things up’ then added ‘It’s all very clean and sterile here.’ She then went on to use a fluorescein strip in one eye (which happened to be the one which had been infected)—then before I realized what she was doing she used the same strip in his other eye.
It is very hard to think quickly enough at the time and not put people’s backs up— but I now take a piece of plastic in with me that I can cover the rabbit carrier with walking through the waiting room, and put on the examining table before they get the bunny out.
The eye infection started the day after a visit to the vet. When I mentioned this I was told—oh rabbits don’t pick things up—his immune system was probably a bit low. On other occasions when I have alerted them that his VHD is out of date (due to being too frail to inoculate him recently) and he might be vulnerable, I have been told by different vets that they don’t get see rabbits with VHD because they die so quickly. But vets MUST come into contact with the virus—which can persist on clothes and surfaces for months. Years ago we had to have our 10 year old rabbit put down with suspected VHD.
So I feel the whole hygiene culture at the practice is quite lax. Even the ophthalmologist had hairs on the table from the preceding animal--when I would have thought with all the stuff she was doing to his eye that hygiene was important. Another vet, when the Ec began, was about to put rabbit on the floor to check his mobility---(I luckily had a tarp with me that I quickly put down). Presumably with dogs walking in to the examining room many vets gets a bit casual about hygiene on floors and tables. But the only sick animals we know our rabbits are exposed to are at the vets. So why don’t they take hygiene on board?
We don’t feel we can change practices---I think we've found one vet at the practice who I trust more than the others, but the practice itself does not make me feel confident, particularly if we need an emergency op for our elderly rabbits. One of ours in particular hyperventilates and stresses so badly when he goes to vet, even with his mate, that we are always afraid he might just die of stress. So we feel we need to go to one very nearby-- with long open hours, one with a hospital and 24 hour monitoring available.
Anyone have similar experiences or advice? Shebunkin
:wave:
