Not the Happiest Day

Bun-Bun finally succumbed last night. I found her already beginning to turn cold. I held her in my warm hands for a while, but when her first spasm came, I was ready and euthanized her before you could say, "Jackrabbit." Used twice as much of the inhalant as called for to be sure she was quickly relieved of her distress.

Yesterday I took in what I had been told was a baby Gray Fox. Foxes are born in April, so I knew it wouldn't be a baby and I should never have accepted her. Sure enough, she turned out to be three-quarters grown. She growled at me.

So I fed her and flushed her wounds with antiseptic and gave her a bit of antibiotic in case her injuries should become infected, and then I let her be. She ate cat food; she drank wanter. She held perfectly still.

This morning I opened her cage and although she lifted her head, she did not growl. With heavily gloved hands, I laid a small but thick blanket over her; she never flinched. I wrapped her in the blanket, still without protest. I lifted her in it and took her with me to Chris, on the theory that it might take two to examine her properly; I thought two of her legs were probably broken. Plus, how do you treat a huge abcess on the tongue of a nearly-adult fox - without getting bitten? (And you cannot afford to be bitten by a fox, because they are a rabies vector species. I've been vaccinated against rabies, but you still don't take that kind of chance.)

We put her in a dog pen to see what she would do. Would she try to walk? Run? Climb?

Nothing. She defecated and then sat down right there and refused to budge. "That's odd," I said. "You'd think she'd at least try to move two steps away from it." And that's when we began to have a certain suspicion. Maybe she had no idea where to go. We waved our hands before her face. No response. She was totally blind.

I picked her up, wrapped her in her baby blanket, cradled her in my arms. I kissed the top of her head and then, without discussion, we euthanized her.