Discover The Power of Compassion

TRIGGER WARNING: Two images may be disturbing. The first image is the hoarding situation this bun was saved from and the second is an image of an abdominal mass removed from him.

Being a compassionate caregiver to a rabbit is a rewarding journey that goes beyond basic care—it’s about nurturing a life with patience, empathy, and unwavering love. Every gentle touch, thoughtful choice, and moment of understanding strengthens the bond you share, allowing your rabbit to feel secure and truly loved. In return, you’ll experience the pure joy and companionship that only a happy rabbit can offer. By embracing compassionate care, you’re not just tending to a pet—you’re enriching both of your lives in ways that are truly meaningful.

I chose @lagomorph_love for TDR’s first compassionate caregiver recognition for a couple of reasons. First of all, her incredible dedication to a bun who came from such a traumatic situation is the most uplifting story. Baggins was truly fortunate to have been given so much love in his short life with her. The other reason I chose her is purely selfish. Back in December we were both finalists in @bunmoms_anonymous contest for bun mom of the year. During the voting, she graciously asked her followers to vote for me instead of herself. Anyone so selfless is the type of caregiver any rabbit would be lucky to have.

January’s Compassionate Caregiver

Lagomorph_love

Tell me about yourself (In this case, this bun mom would like to be a little anonymous)

“My IG handle is @lagomorph_love which was started in January 2023 at the advent of the Lunar New Year which was the Year of the Rabbit then.  I work in healthcare and never had a four-legged family member before until becoming a bunny mom in June 2020. 

I’ve always wanted to have a bunny as a child but was never allowed to have any pets. I had never even touched a bunny until the day I was picking up the first bunny I ever adopted curbside at the local rabbit rescue due to the COVID-19 pandemic.  Also I never received any hands-on or in-person training on bunny care because of the pandemic at that time.  So being a bun mom has been a combination of online research and using common sense.”

Tell me about your rabbit(s)

“I currently have 3 relatively healthy bunnies Mocha, Gus & Theo who are bonded as of February 2024.  The most special bunny and will forever be my number one bunny is Baggins. Mocha & Gus who are still with me were brought home at different times and I bonded all 3 bunnies. 

Baggins, a Holland Lop, was adopted at around 1 year old and we were blessed with him for a short 34.5 months, unfortunately passing away on 5/31/2023. He was part of a 125-rabbit rescue in Spring 2020 from a deceased hoarder/breeder site. Poor baby was living in a small filthy wire-bottom cage. He had been matted all over his body in urine from other bunnies since wire-bottom cages were stacked on top of one another.

In addition, he was considered an Angel Bunny at the local rabbit rescue as he had to be treated with an upper respiratory infection upon being rescued. Most likely there had been inbreeding that occurred where he had lived his first year of life. Baggins and the other bunnies rescued had many health issues. At a veterinary appointment in September 2022 which was 2.5 years after being rescued, the veterinarian who had also treated 5 other bunnies from that same 125-rabbit rescue in Spring 2020 stated that all those bunnies had already passed away and that Baggins was the only one still alive. 

Baggins was treated for E. Cuniculi twice in the time that he lived with me. He occasionally suffered from dizziness as I could tell from the nystagmus (eyes beating to the side) episodes he’d get. Baggins went blind in his left eye less than 6 months after living with me and most likely was from untreated E. Cuniculi before he was adopted.

It took some time to figure out that Baggins was hard of hearing when I first adopted him, and he was treated for ear infections 2-3 times a year. I know it wasn’t normal but Baggins snored everytime he fell asleep. He would get an upper respiratory infection 2-3 times a year. Lastly, Baggins had molar malocclusion. I had a CT scan done on him due to another health scare (he nearly died in June 2022 with a body temperature that dropped to 96 degrees checked by the veterinarian & vet tech 5 times!) and the CT scan showed Baggins had a misaligned jaw.  

With flare-up of E. Cuniculi, Baggins required oral medication for a month. With flare-up of ear infections, he needed medicated ear drops. With flare-up of an upper respiratory infection, Baggins would get a nasolacrimal flush and needed oral medication for a week or two. With the molar malocclusion, Baggins needed a tooth trim under general anesthesia every 5 months. With going blind in the left eye, Baggins need an eye pressure check every few months of both eyes in addition to receiving two different kinds of eye drops twice a day every day. 

Day to day, Baggins needed two different kinds of eye drops in the morning and again at night. In the morning before I would get ready for work, I’d go to Baggins in the pen and put out my hands next to his face to essentially nonverbally ask for permission to pick him up. Nine times out of ten, Baggins would stay and allow me to pick him up so that I could have him on my lap to administer his eye drops followed by treats & snuggles for a good 15 minutes away from view of his 2 “siblings” (Mocha & Gus).

On occasion when Baggins did not want to get his eye meds, he’d run into the litter box and get in a defensive stance. So then I’d have to wait to until he ran out of the litter box and asked for permission again with my hands open by his face and generally he’d let me pick him up on the second ask. I weighed Baggins weekly to monitor his weight and ensure he was eating enough because a sign of dental pain from molar malocclusion would be eating less & thus losing weight.” 

Challenges

“Loving and caring for Baggins was never a challenge. But Baggins had 25 veterinary visits in the short time that he lived with me. I bonded Mocha to him & then later Gus to the pair. I know with bonded bunnies that you should not split them up for any reason. But Baggins required so many veterinary visits for care AND he absolutely had abhorred car rides that it was actually better for Baggins to go alone.

I learned what was the best way to calm Baggins down in the car which was to ride in the pet carrier with the top open and me petting his head the whole way. If I didn’t have contact with him, his anxiety would kick in and he’d start digging like mad. Back when I was still learning about how to best care for Baggins on car rides and before Gus was adopted, he had gone to the vet with Mocha so I didn’t have the pet carrier top open & pet him the whole car ride.

The veterinarian called me later that morning after I dropped him & Mocha off so I could go to work that Baggins had a bloody declaw. I told the veterinarian that he must have done it when digging in the carrier as that is his coping mechanism when anxious in the car. Poor guy. That never happened again as I got better each car ride in knowing what Baggins wanted/needed.

I even held Baggins while driving as he loved hugging my right shoulder but eventually he became calm enough on later car rides to stay in the carrier in the front seat and just have me touch/pet him. The other challenge was the costs of veterinary bills for a bunny with special needs. That ran into a high 5-figure number when I calculated it after Baggins had passed away.” 

Adaptations

“The only real accommodations that I had to make was for Baggins’ hearing impairment & being blind in his left eye. Baggins relied on his right eye for changes in lighting even while sleeping and also his sense of smell. If Baggins was in a deep sleep and didn’t realize I was nearby, then I’d blow air his way to gently stir him awake.

With Baggins being blind on his left eye, the only real accommodation I had to make was to not have sharp or hard toys & tunnels (wooden tunnels) around, especially in the free-roaming area. Also I tried to not change the environment on where things were set up so that Baggins didn’t have to relearn each time where he didn’t like to go or bump into something.

That accommodation probably affected Mocha & Gus more than Baggins as Mocha & Gus are very active and curious. I still talked to Baggins as if he was a normal hearing child. When I snuggled with him and would sing to him, I would just press my face next to his so that he could feel the vibrations of the singing or humming to appreciate the music.”  

Support & Self Care

“I am a relatively private person and low-key. So I hadn’t been on any social media sites for over 7 years until I decided to create an Instagram account just for my bunnies in January 2023. The bunny parent community on Instagram has become an amazing emotional support group.

When I was sitting in a car for 9 hours on the day of Baggins’ surgery to remove a large non-cancerous abdominal tumor because I did not live close to this exotic animal veterinary clinic, I was receiving such wonderful messages of prayers for Baggins & words of comfort for me. Also making & sharing posts of my bunnies is essentially a hobby and a stress relief. Having and loving bunnies…well, aren’t they our emotional support furry kids? 🙂 

The longest I’m away from the bunnies are when I go to work 5 days a week. Being in healthcare, there can be some long hours. So having set up a pet cam to check on the bunnies is helpful. And I’m okay with it but I don’t take vacations rather I take staycations to spend time with the bunnies & relax/sleep tons.” 

Recommended Products

The products I use and recommend are: Epi-Otic once a week for ear cleaning, especially on lop-eared bunnies, a probiotic powder sprinkled on the bunnies’ salad and probiotic treats from River Bard Farm on Etsy.

Advice

Whether you have a special needs bunny or not because healthy bunnies can fall ill too, trust your instincts. Don’t be afraid to ask for a 2nd or even 3rd opinion from veterinarians. Many of us tend to put blind faith in veterinarians, but it is very rare to find a truly rabbit-savvy veterinarian and trust what we’re being told about our bunny. NOTE: “I would not recommend Baggins’ primary veterinarian of nearly 3 years as her negligence led to Baggins’ passing at the young age of 4 years old.” “

BACKSTORY to this advice: 

“I knew Baggins quite well. I immediately knew when something was off with him. A mild but foul odor from his right ear told me to get Baggins checked for an ear infection. Wet fur around his left eye led me to flash a light in both eyes which is how I discovered the cloudiness on the left eye but it was too late to prevent him from going blind in that eye. Baggins snored loudly when he slept; a change in pitch would alert me that Baggins might have an upper respiratory infection. 

Baggins was the biggest mama’s boy. Considering his terrible start to life in a small filthy cage and probably was not socialized as a baby, Baggins had the purest heart and loved me/a human unconditionally since the day I brought him home from the local rabbit rescue. Baggins did not have any behavioral issues; just took a little longer to get Baggins litter box trained. If Baggins did not perk up upon seeing me, that also would tell me something was off like a recurrence of symptoms of E. Cuniculi (mainly dizziness for him). 

We’re told with bunnies to make sure they’re eating, drinking water, pooping, and peeing as measures of good health. Baggins was doing all of that and still had his sweet personality and still his level of active in Spring 2023. I weighed him weekly and his weight did not change. But his back became bony and I was concerned he was losing weight.

Also his underbelly didn’t feel the same to me. I voiced these concerns to the veterinarian that Baggins saw routinely for nearly 3 years over two months before he passed away. This veterinarian suggested doing a fecal sample. I declined after thinking about it because Mocha and Gus would probably be ill if it was a parasite infecting Baggins.

Baggins’ snoring became quieter and I became concerned; his veterinearian didn’t even bother to ask to bring him in rather on the phone she said to give him medication for an upper respiratory infection. I didn’t in my gut feel like it was a URI so I didn’t put Baggins through antibiotics.

Baggins was scheduled for a routine tooth trim for his molar malocclusion on 5/22/2023. I decided to request an X-ray when filling out the pre-op consent forms. I had a bunny pass away from fluid in the lungs so I wanted to rule that out with Baggins since he was going to be under general anesthesia anyway for his routine tooth trim. The X-ray revealed a large abdominal mass.  

I took Baggins to another veterinarian who did an ultrasound on 5/27/2023 and had an opening for surgery to remove the mass on 5/30/2023. Baggins survived the 3-hour surgery; he was under anesthesia an hour longer than a bunny should because the tumor was so large and adhered to the abdominal wall.

The surgeon and vet techs could not get Baggins to wake up from anesthesia so they brought me back to say goodbye. But I knew my Baggins. In 20 minutes of me petting his head and being near him, Baggins woke up and was alert! Everyone in the vet clinic was joyous and thought Baggins was going to make it. Unfortunately he passed away the next day while waiting for a donor for a blood transfusion.  

A necropsy and pathology report indicated that the toxins from the noncancerous mass is what killed Baggins because the mass had been in Baggins for quite some time. Had the tumor been discovered over 2 months prior when I first voiced my concerns to Baggins’ general veterinarian, the surgeon did stated that without a doubt Baggins would still be alive after the tumor removal.

I was able to leave work early the day after Baggins’ surgery to be next to him while we waited for a blood donor. I sat next to him for 75 minutes, petting him, singing to him, talking to him. The minute I left his side when the blood donor bunny arrived at the clinic and Baggins needed to be prepped for the blood transfusion…that is when a vet tech rushed out to the waiting room to get me and it was because Baggins was having the end-of-life seizures. He took his last breath while I had one hand on him and said it was okay to go.”  

Final Thoughts…

A compassionate caregiver understands the unique emotional and physical needs of their rabbit, offering gentle handling, enriching activities, and a peaceful space to flourish. This heartfelt approach not only ensures a rabbit’s health and happiness but also deepens the connection between pet and owner, creating a lifelong bond filled with joy and trust. If you know a compassionate caregiver, you can nominate them for their own special recognition by direct messaging me on Instagram or filling out the contact form on my website.