Our Sweet Thelma (Long)

I'm not sure what happened to our beautiful girl. She had never shown
any signs of illness in the short time we had her. I fed the girls as
usual around 5:20 PM yesterday. Thelma anxiously greeted her nightly
pellets. I covered their cage so hershey couldn't pester when he was
out. Around 6:30 I heard what I thought was an odd scuffle in the
cage. I went to yell at the chocolate boy and he was in his cage. I
uncovered the girls and hubby noticed something was wrong with Thelma
immediately. We took her out, her breathing was strained and she had
what looked like mushed pellets on her nose. I wiped them off and we
aren't sure if they came out her nose or if something happened when
she was eating. I called the emergency vet. They told me the vet on
call that handled rabbits was over 60 miles away in Rhode Island. We
worried such a long car ride would make her fragile state worse and
she wouldn't survive the ride. So we watched her. We were going to
give her 20 minutes to improve or jump in the car for the trip. She
would lift her head when Nicholas came by. Her nose stayed clean and
her breathing and heart rate calmed and after talking to Ronie (we
felt ears and she wasn't cold) decided to ride out the night because
she seemed to improve. We were going to take her to the vet first
thing in the morning. Hubby stayed with her on the couch and she
jumped up a few times so he put her in her cage after midnight. I
checked on her and she seemed alert when I flashed the light on her. I
checked her at 5:15 and her lifeless body was laying in her litterbox.
I honestly thought she was on the mend when I checked her last. I
think maybe she had a genetic defect from the inbreading that cause
something to go terribly wrong last night. I'm convinced nothing
would have saved her. I let Louise sniff her again this morning and
we let Nicholas say goodbye to her. Our ground is frozen, so she is
in freezer until we can bury her with Wendy & Cartman. We are in
shock and devasted. She was such a sweet shy girl. Louise is sad, we
can tell. We're trying to decide if or when we should take her to the
rescue for another bonding mate.

http://rirabbits.org/easter/Cruelty/cruelty.html

Above is the link to how life began for Thelma and Louise. They are 2
of the Cranston rabbits and Thelma is pictured in the cage at the
bottom of the page. We adopted our 2 on Halloween 2006. Thelma and
Louise should be just around 2 years old.

In the 15 months we had her, she had the love and affection of her
partner Louise and 3 humans who catered to her every need. She
especially loved Nicholas and he loved her. She was very skittish
when she came to us and outgrew it somewhat. She was very patient and
seemed to adore Nicholas. After she came home to us, she never again
had to worry about having enough food to eat. She got her daily
pellets and fresh farm hay with clover in it. Her water was changed
daily and she got to share banana with Nicholas on occassion. She
lived with Louise in a 36x48 dog crate where she had plenty of room to
stretch out and relax in. The summer was spent in the comfort of air
conditioning (that was left on especially for the buns at times) and
the winter in a nice warm house. She and Louise had plenty of daily
exercise running around and being silly in the comfort and safety of
our living room. She was subjected to daily pets and hugs and
repeated told she was loved.

Thank you all for your support and kind words. This makes 3 we've
lost in less than 2 years. Devasted doesn't quite cut how we feel.
It's been rough. I'll post an album of her pics on webshots later
(Martin I know you asked to see her again).

Lisa, Hershey, Boo Boo, & Louise (Thelma, Wendy & Cartman FTB)