Betty-Loo's Story

Whew things have been a bit busy around here, I am honestly feeling a bit pooped!

with art work, head-pain, two new buns and the rest of the busy-ness of life etc...

I haven't been able to blog as I normally have been but that's okay...

it's all about fluidity right!

but finally....finally I wanted to tell you a bit more about our newest adopted gal

Betty-Loo

So we adopted Betty-Loo from the Toronto Humane Society.

Meeting and falling in love with her was unexpected.

We drove all the way to the big city to adopt Higgins

but before I even laid eyes for the first time on him

(because he was a special needs adoption agreed to without ever meeting him, like normal)

and as we walked into the room to find our Higgy, we saw Betty and we both said "who is she?!"

We went straight to Higgins of course to meet him but as we were doing that,

I have to admit our attention was also pulled across the aisle to the pen with Betty...

she just sat there like a fluffy ice white princess,

super quiet, calm, lonely against the glass gate of the pen.

So we asked a bit about her.

She had been there a whole year...nobody seemed interested in her

and with a whole new batch of bunnies coming in from an Ottawa shelter,
it was most likely that she would have continued to be overlooked.

The caretakers at the shelter think it was because of her age
& because she has constant weeping eyes that tended to make her look quite sick.

We just had that feeling of 'this one is meant to join our misfit crew...'

and boy we sure were right!

We didn't mind the weepy eyes one bit, I mean of course we wish she didn't have that problem
but a lot of bunnies do because their tear ducts are so small &
can not really be cleaned out once they are clogged up....
we knew we'd clean them for her & Henrie has that problem too,
so we already have to clean his eyes all the time,

adding another bun into that routine didn't feel like a big deal whatsoever.

When we left with our adorable and infamous Higgins...we told the people at the shelter

"We will be back for Betty if at all possible"

I think we deep down already knew that day that we would be bringing her home too.

So when we got home, we proceeded with he usual settling in of a new baby...

but we kept talking about Betty...

when we decided to adopt Higgins we had two places where we could put him,

so why not adopt her and put her in that 2nd area not being used...

Well once we realized we could comfortably do that,

that she'd have 3 times the space as at the shelter & way comfier and cozier

with loads of company, sunlight, music, etc, well we couldn't wait to go get her and bring her home.

So six days after bringing Higgins home,

we made the long journey back to the city to get our girl.

We've done it twice before, bringing un-bonded buns home together, it's a crazy chaotic time

but overtime things settle and than we have the fulfillment & beauty of a completely full home
& the satisfaction of knowing we're helping as many as we possibly can in our current set up.

Her shelter name was already Betty and my hon really found it suited her,

so we just added the 'Loo' for a tiny bit of pretty whimsy...she deserves that.

So this precious heart is over 5 years old, our oldest shelter rescue yet

but she could have been twice that and we

still would have fallen in love and wanted to bring her home.

We know it means we'll have less time with her but we've seen old ones go on and on

and young ones die way to soon so we just love them as long as we're lucky to.

This was her 2nd time being adopted from the shelter, she was in a home before with a sister

but apparently her and her sister were always sick,

the previous person had a baby, than was moving and

apparently the 2 buns were to much to deal with so sadly they were both brought back to the shelter.

Than, maybe because they were never properly bonded, maybe because of the stress of the change

and the loss of their home etc, the two girls started to fight like crazy & cause harm to one another,

so the shelter saw no choice but to separate them.

(which may explain the sadness that we find Betty-Loo has sometimes)

Apparently her sister,

even with liver & kidney problems was adopted long ago but never poor Betty.

Betty-Loo comes to us as a special needs adoption

because she did have a history of teeth problems and we were prepared to face that with her

but we weren't expecting issues right from the start, ugh!

The very first night home, we were watching her eat, or rather try to eat

and we knew something was wrong

because it took her almost 5 minutes to get just one piece of parsley in!

We picked her up, checked her mouth & saw the worst teeth...

top & bottoms were way way to long and splayed on top of that, no wonder she couldn't eat properly!

So she's unable to eat veggies with ease, it takes her half the night & she can't eat any hay at all.

It's been shocking for us that she and her health somehow slipped through the shelter cracks

and it did for a spell cause our faith in the shelter to slip, but mistakes happen, we know it wouldn't have been intentional whatsoever and she's our 12th rescue from the shelter

in half as many years & the care is usually outstanding, so we don't want to hold on to any anger

and they did take steps to offer us and Betty out as much help as they could, which we appreciated.

We just want to get her fixed up and eating normally...which is proving to be a long process

and we are possibly looking at a big dental surgery soon...

but we're so glad this gentle quiet soul is here, right where she belongs.  She is loved so so much.