It is with great sadness that I report the passing of one of Buckeye’s long-term sanctuary residents.  Margery Pontiac was assisted in crossing the Rainbow Bridge on Friday, April 20th, 2018.  Margery had developed a cancerous tumor inside her lung, which was draining into the lung making it difficult for her to breathe.  She saw Dr. Riggs a few times in February and March to have the fluid removed, but it got to the point where we knew a hard decision had to be made.  This medical issue could not be cured, so we chose to say good bye in order to save her from further suffering.  To say she was adored would be a great understatement.  Margery was loved by many people.  She lived with Kristen Doherty for ten years, so she was at least eleven or twelve years old.  Binky free, beautiful girl!  — Stephanie Lodge

Margery Pontiac (named after a Holstein cow) is a beautiful dark brown agouti rabbit with vision problems. Ideally Margery would like us to place hay in her litterbox one strand at a time. This is somehow very reassuring to her, but as you can imagine,becomes highly impractical. If we move at a normal pace, she becomes flustered and overwhelmed and bats the hay right out of our hands.

Margery has developed close ties to only certain humans whom she will let per her, but only if a specific scripted routine is followed. She’s never bitten anyone – ever – but puts on a great and scary display of boxing, batting, grunting, and other intimidating acts.

Our sanctuary rabbits require special love and care. Their home is with us at the sanctuary and they are not available for adoption. You can directly support these rabbits by sponsoring them.

Our beautiful sanctuary bunny, Claire, has passed away.  We were told that she had had advanced uterine cancer when we first took her in.  The vet gave us a grim outlook and we were not expecting her to make it more than one year.  Claire surprised us and lived out her days as a happy normal bunny.  She loved our dogs even more than her humans.  Claire was a joy to have in our lives and we knew that every extra day with her was a gift.  Claire lived for two and half years past her original diagnosis.  We miss our little “Clarisse” but we carry great memories of her in our hearts.  Binky free, little Claire.

Sue and Keith Zimmerman

Sweet little Claire has such a sad story to tell. Claire is around two years old and was surrendered to a shelter by her breeder who no longer wanted her. The shelter had contacted us to see if we could take her. When we had a spot available, we took Claire into our foster home.

Take a look at Portraits of Claire

As usual we scheduled our new foster bunny to be spayed soon after she had arrived in our home. Sadly, cancer was found in Claire’s uterus during her surgery. Our vet was certain that he had removed all of the cancer and that she would have a chance of a good life. A few weeks later Claire’s pathology results were given to us and the prognosis was not good. Cancer cells were found not only inside of the uterus but outside as well; meaning that the cancer has spread inside of her tiny body. The vet was honest with us and said he did not know how long she had.

Right now Claire is showing no signs of illness but we know that can change for her at any moment. We are spoiling her rotten and giving her extra special attention and love. Claire is a lovely, gentle bun. She has big beautiful eyes that will melt your heart every time that you look into them. She loves to be held and cuddled and enjoys free time outside of her pen. She loves being in her cardboard box and her special strawberry hidey hut.

Our sanctuary rabbits require special love and care. Their home is with us at the sanctuary and they are not available for adoption. You can directly support these rabbits by sponsoring them.

Goodbye, sweet Midas.  Your will to live has been an inspiration to everyone who knew you, and you taught us so much.  You were a faithful and loving companion to Gloria E (a generous Buckeye HRS donor) for much of your fourteen-year life.  Then for the last two years, you were a tireless companion and best buddy to Cyrus until Cyrus passed unexpectedly a few weeks ago.

You made us laugh until the very end and we miss you so much.  Keep shakin’ those long gray legs as you make your way past that Rainbow Bridge.  Cyrus will be there waiting for you.

Midas is a sweet old man estimated to be eleven to twelve years old.  He came into foster care as a young man and was then adopted, but sadly, his loving mom recently passed away from Alzheimer’s.  As a result, he has re-entered foster care as a Sanctuary Rabbit.

Midas is extremely friendly and will accept pets from and snuggle with anyone willing to spend time with him.    Since he is older, he has some arthritis so his pen floor is lined with fleece to give him better traction.  Midas also has a serious respiratory/sinus infection that will likely need long-term medical treatment.

Our sanctuary rabbits require special love and care. Their home is with us at the sanctuary and they are not available for adoption. You can directly support these rabbits by sponsoring them.

It is with sadness in our hearts that we share the news that our sanctuary rabbit, Pumpkin (AKA Mrs. Pumpy), has passed away.  She was eleven and a half years old.

Pumpkin came to us in November of 2005 from a mass rescue of “meat rabbits” by the Logan County Humane Society.  Pumpkin never overcame her feral rabbit side and always remained at a distance and unsociable with humans and other rabbits.

After several years in foster care, we decided that it would be best if Pumpkin remained in our home to live out the rest of her years and placed her into our Sanctuary program.  She stayed with us for over ten years.  In the time we had her, Pumpkin did become very attached to our dogs.  She liked playing with them and teasing them at her level. 

The last several months, her health began to slip.  We went through several battles with stasis, from which she always recovered.  Arthritis made it difficult for her to get around.  She passed away peacefully in the night.

Thank you to all of Pumpkin’s sponsors.  We will surely miss our dear old Mrs. Pumpy.

Sincerely,

Sue and Keith Zimmerman 

We rescued Pumpkin and seven of her siblings on November 26th, 2005, from the Logan County Humane Society after they had been seized from a meat rabbit operation that was operating under poor conditions. All of the buns were wary of humans since they’d never been handled as pets. Although the others were eventually adopted, Pumpkin had an attitude and was always skipped over. She was quite distant and would growl, charge, and box during any attempt to handle her. Sometimes she would scream when she was picked up.

Pumpkin did, however, seem to like dogs, and since we have five of them, she had plenty of company. She would be completely at ease around them, even playing with them and teasing. At one point, we moved Pumpkin from our foster population in the outbuilding into the house, hoping that more frequent interaction with humans would put her at ease. It did not work. She is still averse to humans (and other rabbits).