After an evening of unproductive and tiring christmas shopping (December 16, 1998), we returned home, and went straight to the basement to check on the bunnies. We had picked up some parts to fix the door to the rabbit run while we were out, since the door had become a bit loose over time. When we walked in, we noticed a mysterious collection of bunny droppings all over the floor of the basement.

"Hmm. They sure do roll."
"Look at them all, how did these get here!"
"Hey, where are all the rabbits?"
"Um, I only see Gus.. there's something wrong with him... "
(pink smear on his fur, we thought he was injured)..

It turns out that they pushed the gate open and got out into the very non-bunny-proof basement, and somehow Gus got fuel oil on his fur (where from I have no idea, our tanks don't leak.. that's an adventure for another time).. we found the other three rabbits, looking quite at home underneath piles of unsorted boxes, extension cords (which were conveniently chewed through), furniture, boxes.. more boxes... Sigh. We finally caught them and returned them to their run. They drank a lot of water and started eating. I think the door closed behind them and they couldn't get back in (though Gus somehow managed to get back in - he's a smart bunny). There were even bunny droppings and some bunny pee in Hilary's litter box!

Meanwhile, Hilary was meowing loudly in the basement, trying to explain the situation to us.. "Those dumb bunnies are running all over! One got oil on its fur! dumb bunnies! they're pooping everywhere! They even peed in my litter box! I'm mad!!" seemed to be Hilary's general statement.

We took poor (STINKY) gus upstairs and checked him out. He was walking just fine, and seemed fairly alert (though tired). The bottoms of his feet were almost black (we do keep our basement fairly clean, I promise, but who knows how long it's been since someone swept under the oil tanks!). Even the tips of his floppy ears were grey and dusty. He wasn't interested in carrot or parsley, which worried us a bit. Poor bun, he must have been sick, licking off that yucky stuff.. imagine if you needed to lick yourself to get clean. There would be very few auto mechanics, that's for sure! Since rabbits can't vomit, and we didn't want him ingesting the rest of the oil, we decided to give him a bath. They say not to give rabbits baths because they can groom themselves, but we felt like we had no choice in this case.

We ran a few inches of wrist temperature warm water and plopped him into the tub. He was shocked and tried to jump out and wiggle at first. He shook like a tiny puppy, but finally calmed and let us run warm water over him. He settled down and stood in the water with a mopey, defeated expression on his little wet face! We luckily had no-more-tears baby shampoo (with conditioner! smells like apples! how funny!) in the house from when my little sister comes over.. so we sudsed up the oil spot a few times (couldn't get all the oil out, but we got most of it out I think - the oil was just to the right of my left thumb, in the picture on the right)... and rinsed him off. We couldn't get all the conditioner out either, but we did our best.

Funny, we always buy cruelty-free shampoo, but here we are using it on a rabbit and trying not to get it in his eyes. Luckily its been tested on human children, so we know its safe. :-)

We finally figured he was as rinsed as was possible (he was still DRY where the soap hadn't gotten him - that fur is really something!!) and took him out. I wrapped him in a towel, and he struggled and snuggled until I was soaked through, then calmed down. He started grooming himself. It turns out that the water didn't even penetrate to his skin in most places. The only parts of his body where his skin got wet were his back and side, where we soaped him up, and his ears, which don't have much fur on them anyway.

Mike and I gently blow dried him, being careful not to overheat him, and brushed him with a soft brush to fluff his fur back up. Whenever we blew at the oil spot, it got stinky. Hopefully we evaporated a lot of the oil off of him.. we'll see. We blew on him for a good 1/2 an hour, and finally he seemed dry enough to return to the basement. It's a warm basement, but not as warm as my lap. :-)

He licked himself constantly. We were hoping the other buns would join in, but they didn't help him, unfortunately (even though he smelled like apples!). We wondered what he must be thinking... "oh great, I make these new friends, and I think Clover even likes me, and NOW look what happens. I smell like fuel oil and soapy apples. Geezum, and they won't even groom me! Just my luck".

We watched him for quite a while that night. He started eating pellets and hay, which was a good sign. He spent most of his time sitting in the wooden box, grooming himself. Basil hung around him, but nobody offered to groom him. The next morning, he seemed to be fine, though he still faintly smelled like oil for a few days.

Post Script - After thinking about it, I think we should have simply clipped the oil-ridden fur off of him fairly close to the skin before trying to bathe him. It seems obvious now, but back then, we hadn't seen bunnies through enough sheds to feel like fur is as transient and grow-back-able as I know it is now. Bunnies do just fine with bald spots (unless they're on their feet - that's more tricky). If this ever happened again, I'd just carefully snip the fur off and perhaps bathe him to get out the oil that was left. Oh well, live and learn.