Meet Tatters.

Tatters came to us around May 2009 as a train wreck of a bunny.  She had spent her life chained to a front porch by her neck and flies had eaten the edges of her ears. Dehydrated and badly in need of food, she required lots of TLC for a long time. At only 3 years of age, Tatters is now our poster child for why you should spay your rabbit.

We delayed spaying Tatters while she healed both mentally and physically to ensure there would not be any complications from a routine spay surgery. Last week, Tatters was diagnosed with uterine cancer. Pyrometria was her only symptom – which means that she was excreting a small amount of bright red blood. Her prognosis is good now that she has been spayed, and she is now happy and doing quite well.

Please take Tatters as an example of what can happen, and spay your rabbit. Save their life. Don’t think it can never happen to you – it can. Rabbits have an extremely high metabolism, almost three times higher than a cat’s. Since they were born to reproduce, the likelihood of your female rabbit developing cancer is actually quite high. As a rule we spay and neuter here at the Rescue, and this is the first case of cancer we have ever seen in our rabbits. And we don’t want to ever see it again.

Be smart. Spay or neuter your companion rabbit!