Happy Caturday! This is Bucky Barnes, a long-time resident of ACS. Bucky has a right foreleg amputated at the shoulder as a consequence of being struck by a car in his former home. He survived the collision - though studies show around 70% of cats hit by cars do not - but suffered a completely shattered limb. His owners could not afford to take him to the vet, and hoped it would heal on its own. Instead, the limb became necrotic, and he was in so much pain that he began attempting to chew it off. It was at that point that they brought him to the vet for euthanasia. Our vet asked if they would be willing to instead surrender the sweet and otherwise healthy young cat if he could arrange a rescue placement, and they agreed. He called us straight away, and Bucky had his amputation that very same day.
Road mortality is one of the leading causes of death in free roaming cats. One study from a vet clinic in Canada showed that a staggering 87% of traumatic injury deaths in their feline patients were from being struck by cars. Roaming cats face many dangers, vehicles being a prominent one, which is why ACS's resident cats are indoor-only, and we will not place adoptables with homes that allow outdoor access without the safety of a catio, cat-proof fencing, or leash and harness.
Some argue that cats are bored indoors, and there is some validity to that when it comes to environments that don't allow them to express natural behaviors. However, with proper enrichment, cats can live just as happily indoors, without the immense health and safety risks, nor the profound ecological detriment they cause outdoors. We have made several posts on this topic, but if you would like to know more, this article is a good, balanced summary of the dangers cats face outdoors, their environmental impact, as well as the challenges they may have indoors without appropriate enrichment. Remember, behavioral enrichment is an essential aspect of ALL animal husbandry, regardless of species.
Some of you may have seen our fundraiser. We wanted to put all the updates in one place, for our friends who may not have seen them.
June 12 — On his way home from work, Ryan found this handsome fellow on the side of our rural road in coyote country, where a white pet rabbit just doesn't belong, so he stopped. The bunny was ridiculously friendly, came right over, and let Ryan pick him up — clearly he was someone's pet, we thought, who must have escaped. Ryan brought him home, and we put up a notice on our neighborhood Nextdoor site, hoping to find his owners.
As soon as we got him home, we noticed he was limping — a toe on his left hind foot was seriously injured, hot and swollen, weeping pus, with bone protruding. You can see in the photo below how swollen that hind foot was. We gave him some fresh greens and water, made him as comfortable as we could in our bathroom for the night, and took him to the vet first thing in the morning.
June 13 — It was very bad news. Our vet said she thought he must have torn off a toenail two or three weeks previously, it had gotten infected, and now the toe was necrotic and the bone itself was exposed and infected. He had a high fever. This was a life-threatening injury and infection.
His only hope for survival was surgery to amputate the infected bone — maybe just the toe, if he was lucky, maybe his whole hind limb — put him on several weeks of antibiotics, and give him good nursing care. She estimated the cost of the surgery alone at $1500, with several hundred more in follow up care, pain medication, and antibiotics.
The good news was he was eating and drinking, and he seemed to be young enough that he had a good shot at healing if he got the surgery. Even a three-legged bunny can have a happy life as an indoor pet. We took him home with pain medicine and antibiotics, and scheduled surgery for Friday, hoping we'd find his owners by then.
Tragically, when we found his former owners, it turned out they had deliberately let him go several months previously because he had chewed things in the house, and weren't prepared to provide any care for him. They told us he was only two years old, and that they used to call him Philip. They agreed to surrender him to us.
Since I'm disabled and Ryan only started back to work recently, after nine months of unemployment, an unexpected $1500+ expense was hard to absorb. But we're also incredible softies who used to volunteer with a small animal rescue in California. We just couldn’t turn away from this bun: the gentlest, sweetest-tempered rabbit we had ever encountered. We knew he’d make a wonderful pet for us or another adopter if he survived. We renamed him Sachi, a Japanese word meaning "lucky” and decided we’d find a way.
Several people in our neighborhood said how glad they were we rescued him. Taking a leap of faith, we set up a gofundme page for Sachi, hoping to get some help with the vet bills through the kindness of strangers and neighbors alike.
June 15 — We found a fantastic hand-made indoor hutch on Craigslist for $125. The previous owner had recently lost her beloved house bun to old age, and was happy to know it would be going to be a home for a bunny who really needed it. We put a litter box in for Sachi, too, and he got the concept right away.
Sachi was doing well so far, eating, drinking, and pooping just like a rabbit should. As sick as he was, that was a miracle! He didn’t much care for his antibiotics and pain medicine, but he tolerated us giving them to him, and forgave us enough to allow petting afterwards. He did turn out to be a big fan of dandelion and grape leaves. Fortunately we had plenty of both in the garden.
We learned from a neighbor about a wonderful Portland animal hospital, DoveLewis, that has a program that provides free medical care for stray animals. Unfortunately, we also learned that to get Sachi care through that program, we'd have to surrender him to the county, and hope that they didn't decide euthanasia was the way to go.
Even though we could scarcely afford his surgery ourselves, we couldn't part with him. Sachi had found a home with us, and we were going to do our best to do right by him, whatever it took.
June 16, Surgery Day —Fantastic news! The little guy made it through surgery!
Fortunately for him, although the infection had spread beyond his toe, it was still contained entirely in his foot. In a heroic, three hour surgery, his vets amputated his leg up to the hip to ensure that all the infection was excised.
Bad news: Poor guy came home in the cone of shame.
Good news: Even though the surgery was much more extensive than originally planned, the total price only came out to $1642, which is not much over the original $1500 estimate. His vets — Dr Houston and Dr Dabritz of Barlow Trail Veterinary Clinic in Sandy, OR did amazing work, and really helped us by keeping costs as low as possible. We absolutely can't thank them enough.
We were worried about him eating, and thinking we might have to syringe feed him, but he ate six dandelions leaves with gusto as soon as he got home, and then passed out flat. He woke up for more leaves several times over the course of a few hours. We had to hand feed him, thanks to the cone of shame, but were very relieved!
He was to be on strict confinement for the next two weeks while he does his initial healing, and scheduled to see the vet again for a check up in a week.
Amazingly, our fundraiser was already past the halfway mark! We couldn’t be more grateful.
June 17 — More good news! Sachi was bright and feisty first thing in the morning. He was already hopping around in his hutch, fully alert, and eager to be hand fed dandelion leaves. He also resisted taking his antibiotics with much more vigor than he ever did before his surgery. We think that with the infected leg amputated, he actually had more energy and health to protest them with.
He’s already relaxed enough to stretch out and flop on his side, missing leg or no. (Don’t worry, that pink part isn’t anything scary; he’s just a boy bunny who hasn’t been neutered yet.)
June 18 —We had an eventful Saturday night and Sunday. Sachi made it clear the cone wasn't working. He kept banging it into things and knocking things over and couldn't eat. So we shortened it a little, but still it didn't work, and he was spending all his energy trying to get it off.
We tried replacing it with a soft donut collar, but he slipped that off immediately. So then we tried a putting him in a onesie. I'm not kidding. Google it: people put pets in onesies post surgery to keep them from bothering their wounds.
If he'd had an abdominal injury instead of a missing leg it might have worked, but instead it just made things worse, trapping poop close to the surgery site. So we took that off him, cleaned him up, and left him collarless. We also made an emergency appointment with the vet for a wound check, since he'd gotten it dirty.
The good news was he seemed to be leaving the staples alone. He’d groomed the area and licked it, but just to keep it clean. The bad news was he was still running a fever, but so far with no signs of infection in the wound, so that could be stress.
He was still bright as can be, eager to interact, loved petting, and was enjoying a diet of blackberry leaves, fresh grass, and hay with gusto. Still not a big fan of his medicine, but oh well. Not many people are, really.
It was becoming clear to us that he was going to turn this around and be just the nicest bunny. He'd happily sit in Ryan's lap and be petted, and groom Ryan, too, licking his arm to make sure all the hair lies in one direction.
Point is, we were falling in love.
June 19 — WE MADE OUR GOAL! In less than a week, we managed to raise $1500 for Sachi’s medical expenses. We are beyond grateful, and a little awestruck at the generosity of friends and strangers alike, who were willing to help us save Sachi’s life. We should be able to come up with the remaining $500 or so to cover the rest of his care.
June 25 — A week after surgery, Sachi is doing GREAT! We saw the vet Saturday, and she removed seven of the twelve staples that had closed his wound. Sachi, naughty bun, had already removed the other five himself, but fortunately except for one little scabbed area, there was no harm done. The wound is healing well, and he's learning to get around on three legs just fine. He's even figured out how to clean his ears again, a feat not easy when you're missing a hind leg.
He's completely litterbox trained, which makes things so much easier for us. As of yesterday he's been given freedom to do limited roaming in the den, and boy is he delighted with it! He's currently stretched out by the window enjoying the view, happy as can be.
He'll see the vet one more time on Tuesday, and as long as all is well, he'll be allowed to stop taking his antibiotics, and get on with life as a tripawed house bun.
He continues to be the most affectionate, sweet-tempered rabbit we've ever seen. He'll happily sit and cuddle while we watch a movie. His only vice so far is licking the couch. We have no idea why he licks the couch, but he seems happy, and we can deal with the damp patches.
Thanks to all of you, Sachi is well on his way to a long, happy life with us — a life he almost certainly would have lost if we hadn't found him just in the nick of time to get him the surgery before the infection killed him.
He is one lucky rabbit, and we are two lucky people to have him in our lives, and to have all of you kind, generous, supportive friends who helped us.
Sachi made it through surgery! He had to have an amputation right up to the pelvis, but he's home and eating dandelion greens after a long, difficult day. The surgery ended up costing a little more than originally estimated, as they had to do a whole leg amputation, but thanks to our generous donors we've made some real progress towards meeting our original goal.
Thank you everyone who’s helped us help Sachi so far. We’ve posted two updates with all the details and some pictures on the gofundme page.
