More bad news from the bunnies. Waboose, my black rabbit, died suddenly yesterday. This is a great shock, as up to that time he had never been sick and seemed healthy and strong. He was only three years old.
Waboose came to live with Wee and I when he was about 3 months old. He was in danger of being donated to the zoo as crocodile food, and for the price of 7€ I was able to save his life. The people I bought him from thought he was a female, and I was surprised to establish that he was a male after he came home to Wee. So he had to take a trip to the vet to be sterilized, because there are plenty of bunnies in the world who don't have good homes, and I didn't want my guys to contribute to that.
Wee and Waboose's relationship was very rocky for about a month, because they had great difficulty establishing who was dominant. Wee was successful however, following up her initial reaction of peeing on Waboose with a long campaign of dominance. Over the years, Waboose tried to topple Wee's regime, but never succeeded. After their first month of living in separate cages, they independently decided to move into the big cage together, leaving one cage unoccupied. This was a surprise to their human, because up to that point they hadn't seemed to like each other, but it was also a welcome change, as it freed up a good amount of space.
Wee and Waboose were the best of friends until Wee's death 2 weeks ago. This seemed to be a terrible shock for Waboose and he started behaving differently, being a bit more scared than usual and not eating as many treats. Previously, he would eat many treats in rapid succession, often stealing them from Wee, but without her company, he would only eat one treat, then return to his house, refusing more. He seemed to be mourning and lonely. When his new wife, Rosie, arrived last week, he perked up, quickly dominating her and cuddling a lot with her. He even started to eat more treats again.
Then yesterday, after behaving normally in the morning, he started acting very strangely between 11 and 11:30 and was very weak. We started on our way to the vet, but Waboose died on the way.