Sammy&Patch
Warren Scout
I have 2 things I was hoping to get opinions on please.
Some background: Shadow is approx 6-7 years old, diagnosed with a heart problem in November last year, on medication and doing well. We lost his bonded partner in November not long after he was diagnosed. We are looking to get out of the bunny cycle for a while at least but know that Shadow needs a new friend. We work from home so can give him a lot of attention but it doesn't replace a bunny! We decided we would try bonding an older bunny with him. He went to a rescue that does bonding for a week, we bought them both back and they were fine for about 4 days then started fighting. Due to shadow's heart issues we had to seperate them as he looked so exhausted we thought he was going to have a heart attack. We did give another try the next day but they fought again. They then spent a week apart in seperate rooms. Then another week side by side before we attempted again. Unfortunately that also got into a fight pretty quickly so we had to stop it. The other bunny has now gone back to rescue and they are looking at other options for us. I spoke to my vet at length and she thought one more try was worth it but if they fought not to try again. She thought we should try one more bunny if it didn't work out, but then we might just have to have him living alone, although she knows that's not ideal. We came to the same sort of conclusion, it didn't seem to be stressful for him at first, even travelling nearly 3 hours to the bonding rescue. But since the fights he really wasn't doing well out of his routine. Since he has had his space back and most of his routine he is pretty much back to normal again. Shadow is actually a very energetic bunny despite his heart so it's also a stress factor/ frustration for him to be penned up for too long. He is used to a lot of space!
So we really really want to make the next match work considering it might be his last try. Please bare in mind we are highly aware that he needs a friend, we hate him being alone, we spent 6 months doing the previous bond for him and our previous bunny back in 2020 so we know that with time and effort it can work out. We just can't risk his heart stressing him for such a long time, if he died of a heart attack we would feel forever guilty as we have strict instructions not to let him get stressed and give him a calm and quiet life.
If possible I would like opinions on:
1. If Shadow was your bunny would you agree with the vet that we might have to stop trying or would you just keep going no matter how long it took or how stressful it might be for him, thinking the benefits outweighed the risks? (we already did that to an extent by having him travel 3 hours to the bonding, we knew it was a risk but us and our vet thought it was worth it to get a professional to do it).
2. If we can't find an older bunny that we think would be suitable (it really needs to be a submissive bunny and we are in a remote location so the other bunny needs to be ok to travel quite far to us), has anyone had experience using a rescues service where they let you long term foster a bunny from them to be a companion until yours passes away, then that bunny goes back to rescue? It sounds like a good idea to get out of the bunny cycle but also keeping your bunny happy for the rest of its life. BUT I really think we would struggle to give up the other bunny as we would have fallen in love with it and would feel so guilty. I know that is the aim of it so just wondered anyone who's done it, how did you feel about it? If we then kept the other bunny we would be back in the same situation of needing to get another bunny so it really would have to be returning the bunny to rescue. I guess I would feel like I was being unfair on the other bunny, like I would be making sure Shadow was happy but not caring about the new one. We felt bad enough the bunny we just took in going back to rescue and we only knew him for a few weeks!
Thanks for any advice or opinions
Some background: Shadow is approx 6-7 years old, diagnosed with a heart problem in November last year, on medication and doing well. We lost his bonded partner in November not long after he was diagnosed. We are looking to get out of the bunny cycle for a while at least but know that Shadow needs a new friend. We work from home so can give him a lot of attention but it doesn't replace a bunny! We decided we would try bonding an older bunny with him. He went to a rescue that does bonding for a week, we bought them both back and they were fine for about 4 days then started fighting. Due to shadow's heart issues we had to seperate them as he looked so exhausted we thought he was going to have a heart attack. We did give another try the next day but they fought again. They then spent a week apart in seperate rooms. Then another week side by side before we attempted again. Unfortunately that also got into a fight pretty quickly so we had to stop it. The other bunny has now gone back to rescue and they are looking at other options for us. I spoke to my vet at length and she thought one more try was worth it but if they fought not to try again. She thought we should try one more bunny if it didn't work out, but then we might just have to have him living alone, although she knows that's not ideal. We came to the same sort of conclusion, it didn't seem to be stressful for him at first, even travelling nearly 3 hours to the bonding rescue. But since the fights he really wasn't doing well out of his routine. Since he has had his space back and most of his routine he is pretty much back to normal again. Shadow is actually a very energetic bunny despite his heart so it's also a stress factor/ frustration for him to be penned up for too long. He is used to a lot of space!
So we really really want to make the next match work considering it might be his last try. Please bare in mind we are highly aware that he needs a friend, we hate him being alone, we spent 6 months doing the previous bond for him and our previous bunny back in 2020 so we know that with time and effort it can work out. We just can't risk his heart stressing him for such a long time, if he died of a heart attack we would feel forever guilty as we have strict instructions not to let him get stressed and give him a calm and quiet life.
If possible I would like opinions on:
1. If Shadow was your bunny would you agree with the vet that we might have to stop trying or would you just keep going no matter how long it took or how stressful it might be for him, thinking the benefits outweighed the risks? (we already did that to an extent by having him travel 3 hours to the bonding, we knew it was a risk but us and our vet thought it was worth it to get a professional to do it).
2. If we can't find an older bunny that we think would be suitable (it really needs to be a submissive bunny and we are in a remote location so the other bunny needs to be ok to travel quite far to us), has anyone had experience using a rescues service where they let you long term foster a bunny from them to be a companion until yours passes away, then that bunny goes back to rescue? It sounds like a good idea to get out of the bunny cycle but also keeping your bunny happy for the rest of its life. BUT I really think we would struggle to give up the other bunny as we would have fallen in love with it and would feel so guilty. I know that is the aim of it so just wondered anyone who's done it, how did you feel about it? If we then kept the other bunny we would be back in the same situation of needing to get another bunny so it really would have to be returning the bunny to rescue. I guess I would feel like I was being unfair on the other bunny, like I would be making sure Shadow was happy but not caring about the new one. We felt bad enough the bunny we just took in going back to rescue and we only knew him for a few weeks!
Thanks for any advice or opinions
