Walter and I hit the road for North Carolina this weekend. After I made him spend a total of eleven hours in the car, the rabbit did not care to be my friend for the majority of the weekend and he spent a lot of time sulking behind the bed in the hotel room.
This was my first time staying at a hotel with Walter, and it was not an experience I’d like to relive anytime soon. For starters, Walter is an incredibly curious rabbit and will find his way behind every piece of furniture available to him. At home, this isn’t a problem since everything has been rabbit-proofed. In a hotel room, this leads to disaster. Walter made his way behind the nightstand, which housed the power cords to a lamp and an alarm clock, the cord for the cable, and one other wire whose purpose I could not identify.
This meant that Walter had to be locked in the bathroom for most of the weekend, to avoid having my parents and I spend hours chasing him around the hotel room. This displeased the rabbit, who punished us by trying to chew the waterline for the toilet and then refusing to go to the bathroom in his litter box all weekend. He further showed his disgruntlement by snubbing me and any food I offered him. But if food or forehead scratches were offered by my mother, he welcomed it. Such a bratty bunny.
Thankfully, Walter got over it quickly when we finally got home on Sunday and we’re friends again.
During my drive down to North Carolina, the rabbit’s veterinarian called me with the results from Walter’s blood tests. Most of the results were fine. He tested lower than average in some areas, but the veterinarian cautioned me against worrying about these results just yet. One really positive note is that Walter did not test positive for Pasteurella, which almost all bunnies have. It’s amazing that he doesn’t have this bacterium. On the downside, the veterinarian said that the rabbit tested “mildly positive” for E. Cuniculi. This either means he had the infection in the past, or he is about to develop the infection further.
As a result, I have to be on high alert for Walter. I’ve been instructed to watch for “absolutely anything abnormal,” which is stressful for me, since I think Walter’s a pretty abnormal animal already. One of the key things to watch for is Walter’s water intake, to see if he’s drinking too much. This is hard to do, since he uses a bowl and I can never tell if he’s consumed the water or if it’s just spilled out over the course of the day. I will need to bring Walter back to the animal hospital in about a month to retest him for E. Cuniculi, or sooner if he starts behaving more abnormally than usual.
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