Sick Steve and the Baby Bunny

Earlier this spring our dog Steve, a 13-year-old Shepherd/Husky mix, became very lethargic and quit eating. After giving him a couple of days to recover he still would not eat anything, and drank very little. We tried his favorite treats, chicken, steak, broth. He would barely even look at food. We took him to the Vet, who examined him and ran some blood work, which showed some extremely high liver enzymes. She gave him a shot and sent us home with some antibiotic pills, with advice on other food to try to feed to him. Nothing worked. He was visibly loosing weight and could barely get up to go outside. We had lost our other dog, Marley, last year, and we were now preparing to put Steve down. After seven days of no eating we called the Vet again and he said after this long of a time I think the dog has won. Shelly tried one more time with some broth, and Steve drank it. Then she fed him some boiled chicken, and he ate a little. For a few days he ate chicken at least once a day, sometimes twice. Then he would eat a small amount of dog food with the chicken, and eventually full portions again. He became more lively, walking around, until after a few weeks he was his old self, eating and drinking and running around the acreage again.

Epilogue: Shortly after his recovery I was in the garage with the overhead door open, mixing up Steve’s food. I called for him, and he came running, but when I turned around with his food bowl he disappeared from view. I called him again, no Steve. I walked out of the garage and spotted him around 30 feet away, with something in his mouth. I hollered at him to drop it and when he did I could see it was a baby bunny on its back with the little legs working around. As I started walking toward Steve he immediately picked back up the bunny and began chewing it, working it lengthwise across his mouth, breaking its bones. As I advanced on him he gave me a furtive look, turned the bunny in his mouth head first and with two or three neck stretches and gulps swallowed it whole. I stopped and just stared at him. I had only seen snakes do that. Over the next few days we kept an eye on him to make sure he was okay, and he was. Not only had he regained his old appetite, he had acquired a new one.