Oh happy day!

I'm so excited! I have to share this with someone... Laurie's still in her test and I can't wait! Bennett has been using the litter box to pee in!!!!!! YAY! Let me go back a little, yesterday when I came in to clean his cage and feed him and such, I noticed that the paper in the catch bin was pretty dry. There were some old dried out spots but nothing new, so I was a little worried. We were going to the vet anyway, so I thought I'd mention it there. I checked the litter box cursorily and it didn't look wet so I didn't really think he'd been using it. He peed in the carrier at the vet's office, so I was pretty sure that everything was ok (I'll talk more about the vet visit in a second here) and expected a wet mess for me when I got up this morning to take care of things. Mystified, again there was no wet newspaper at the bottom of the catch bin, none, not even anything dried. I was going to change the litter box today anyways, and when I picked up the hay on top, I was in for a big surprise. He'd been using it! The litter below the hay was soaked. I'm so proud of him! I didn't expect it before the neutering surgery, so I'm really happy right now! No more cleaning the whole cage everyday! Just the litter box - whoohoo! We've had him a week and things are already getting easier for me to take care of him!

Anyways, the vet visit went well. I really liked the Dr. and he seemed really knowledgeable about rabbits, which is really good for us. Some vets only do dogs and cats and rabbits are considered exotics, so finding a good rabbit vet can sometimes be a challenge. Luckily for us, there's a great one not that far from our place. We scheduled the neutering for January 20th. I feel a little bad about this because we're going out of town the next evening, just for the weekend. Our old neighbor Eileen is going to be rabbit-sitting for us. But when I really think about it, it might be easier for her to take care of him when he's recovering from surgery because he'll be confined to the cage for a few days until he's feeling himself, which puts that timeline to right when we get home. I think it'll be good. Ok, more on the vet visit... We got his nails trimmed and some of the mats sheared off of his private parts - he didn't not like either of these things because they had to hold him belly up to reach those parts. I am glad that his nails are shorter though! He doesn't have ear mites, what we had thought might have been ear mites looks to have been a scar from a bite or something from before we got him. The vet did say that his muscle tone is not very good, that he feels like he's been caged most of his life and that we need to work on getting him to get some exercise. We've been playing around with the idea of setting up a rabbit run in the backyard, but for now, we'll be exercising him in the pen or playing around with him in the kitchen so he can work on getting buff. The only other worrying thing is that he seems to have some tooth problems, which aren't unusual in rabbits. They are going to get a better look at what's going on with his teeth while he's under anesthesia for the neuter but it might turn out that we'll need to get his teeth filed every once in awhile. We were also concerned with a little bit of sneezing and discharge from his nose, but since we've had him such a short period of time, we'll just wait and see. If it gets any worse, we'll be making another appt sooner that 4 mo out.

Did I mention that yesterday Bennett was licking me? That's the ultimate sign of bunny affection! I am definitely happy to have him around, work and all! I can now attest to how wonderful bunny kisses are!