Last night, Pelé inexplicably took a turn for the worse. He experienced a round of seizures before becoming very listless. His breathing was labored and raspy. We drove him down to the emergency clinic in Blue Ash as fast as we could, but he passed shortly after arrival.

He was a wonderfully sweet bunny and a joy to be around. Even though he stayed with me for only a couple of days, I miss him terribly. My only consolation is that he spent his final days with people who loved him rather than alone in the backyard of that hellhole of a house in Trotwood.

It's always the little ones who pay for the stupidity of the dregs of society.

I was able to let out some of the bunnies that were rescued from the house in Trotwood. Pictured below are: Blossom, Carmen, Halo, Pelé and Tobie.

If you live in the Dayton area, you've probably heard about the story where 240 animals were rescued from a home in Trotwood. Of course, Dayton Rabbit was there to help the shelter out. A total of seven bunnies were rescued from the house on thursday night. We worked that evening to get all of them situated in clean cages and provided them with food and water.

Friday morning, I took a day off and went to to help clean the bunny cages. I was then able to give them all a cursory exam. Six out of seven bunnies are pretty young at about eight weeks old. Most of them, though dirty, were in good health. But, a couple exhibited some nasal discharge which is worrisome. Thankfully, our favorite vet is coming in this morning to give them an exam. Hopefully, some antibiotics will clear things up and the buns will be good as new.

I'm going to bring my camera in today and plan on taking some photos so that you all can bask in the cuteness.

Last Saturday afternoon, I got a call from a woman who had contacted the shelter about a bunny in her front yard. She was worried that the little guy would go into her neighbor's back yard and get killed by the two dogs that live back there. I grabbed a carrier and headed over to her house.

When I arrived, the bunny was sitting on her front porch munching on some lettuce that the woman had put out for him. He was a medium sized bun, black and weighing I'd guess about 6 pounds. Even thought, I approached him very slowly, he took off running around the side of the house and into the lady's back yard. I was starting to get a little worried, because her back yard butts up against a pretty busy street and I didn't want him to run out into traffic.

I recruited her husband to help me herd the bunny back towards the front yard. But, of course, the bunny wasn't having any of it and decided to run into a neighbor's open garage. I followed him inside to find that he had squeezed in behind the work bench. I knocked on the door that led into the house and asked the homeowner if he would mind shutting the garage door. I explained about the bunny and asked for his help. With the garage door closed, the homeowner used a crutch to sort of prod him out from behind the work bench.

The bunny decided that he'd had enough prodding and made for the garage door to escape, but much to his dismay, he found it closed. I swear that the expression on his face was palpable when he encountered the closed garage door. The expression of "DOH!" could be read as clear as day. You could almost see him deflate.

At that point, I was able to scoop him up and carry him out to my car. I thanked the homeowner and took the bunny back to my house where he stayed for a day until I could take him to the shelter.

As it turned out, the bunny, whom we named Indy, is as sweet as they come and will make someone an excellent companion.

I went to the shelter yesterday after work to discover that a new bunny had been dropped off. I went over to take a look and saw a little white Jersey Wooly with a swollen eye. I went back to the vet room and talked to one of the technicians and we decided that he needed to go to the clinic. The poor little guy had some green goop coming from his eye but we didn't see any nasal discharge that would indicate pasteurella. I presumed that our vet would just put him on some antibiotics and we'd call it a day.

The plan was that I would come in first thing in the morning and run him over to the clinic so he could get taken care of. Unfortunately, when I arrived, I found out that the little guy had passed during the night. Now, this is where it can sometimes be hard working with animals. You see, when we were initially checking him out, it was only five-fifteen or so. My vet closes at six. That mean that I could have taken him last night. It would have been close, but I could've made it. So, after I was given the news, I immediately went through all of the scenarios about how I should have known that the bunny was that sick. That I should have just taken him last night. That this is all my fault and I let the little guy down.

My wife and my friend, Chuck, tried explaining to me that if the bunny was so sick that he died within hours of coming to the shelter, that they doubted that there was much that the vet could've done. Though I mostly agree with them, I still feel guilty because there was the chance that the vet could've saved him.

I know that all of the good that we're doing for the shelter bunnies way outweighs the mistakes that we've made, but that still doesn't make accepting our mistakes any easier.

Our four little bunnies went to the vet yesterday morning to get checked out. As it turned out, they needed to be treated for coccidia and conjunctivitis. In addition, the veterinary technicians had to shave the hardened poop deposits off of the sides of their back feet. I wasn't really surprised, as if you saw how bad their little feet were, clippers seemed to be the only answer. Overall, our vet was pretty pleased with their condition and is confident that they'll be just fine.

The bunnies are currently recovering at Chuck's house and are keeping busy by eating everything in sight. Once they get a little older and easier to tell apart, we'll separate, sex and name them.

Here are the pictures of the rescued bunnies, as I promised. Jessica took them shortly after we cleaned them up and put them in their new home.

I'm glad that I stopped by the shelter this afternoon. In the vet room were four bunnies who were found in a box outside of the Moraine Civic Center. I think someone said that the box had a sign on it that read, "Bunnies ten dollars."

I went in to the vet room to take a look at them and was pretty concerned about what I saw. The bunnies were all in a kitty carrier and appeared to be between eight and twelve weeks old. They were covered in pee and poop and smelled terrible. But, the good news was that their eyes and noses looked clear.

The staff and I huddled up to decide what to do about them. Since it was a saturday afternoon and our regular bunny vet was closed, we decided that I'll just take them off-site so they can be given whatever care they need until monday. I called another DARN member, Chuck, and he offered to keep them over the weekend. I gathered up a cage, bowl and bottle from the storage area and took the bunnies over to Chuck's house.

We did our best to clean them up, but they were matted pretty badly. The area on the sides of their back feet held the worst spots by far. They had lost some hair as well. After a semi-successful brushing, we put them one by one into a clean cage with food, water and a litter box. We were pleased to see that the little guys still had an appetite as they dug right in to the pellets and hay.

The good news is that they looked worse than they really were and have no obvious illness other than the worrisome hair loss. They're alert, active and will likely do just fine until they can go in and see the vet on monday morning. I'll post an update and some photos when I know more.