A (hopefully minor) crisis at hand

Needed to feed Mickey via syringe tonight, and the vet is getting a call in the morning.

I always feed him twice a day; because I am a night person, this ends up being mid-afternoon and late at night. Normally, when I sit down beside his cage, he is a major spazbunny; pulling at the cage door, practically climbing into my lap and trying to get into his treats before I can put them into his pellet dish.

This afternoon when I went to feed him, he refused to eat. He didn't even come over to the door of his cage to try to get a treat. He would make a few steps in my direction, then turn around, walk back to where he was sitting before and settle down again. Even his favorite Cheerios were snubbed.

When a treat-mad bun isn't mad about his treats, it's bad.

He'd definitely eaten what he'd been given the night before, so I didn't completely panic. I put his food in his cage as always and went out for an appointment. I figured it was very possible that he would start eating while I was gone--and if not, I'd take him out and give him a look-over.

When I got home, I saw that he still hadn't eaten and he hadn't budged from where he'd been before, so I took him out of the cage and checked him over. Nothing appeared out of the ordinary, so I sat down with him on the couch and gave him a tummy massage to see if perhaps that would get things moving and inspire him to eat. He perched on my shoulder as always, didn't give any signs of being in pain or discomfort. When I put him back in his cage a couple of hours later, he went right back to the same spot and settled down again. I tried tempting him with food again; nothing.

By that time, it was too late to call the vet, so I made a run to the store to get what I would need to syringe-feed him. Once I got home, I took him out of his cage, put him in a cardboard box lined with a flannel sheet and began getting liquids in him. He is not a big water-drinker, he tends to get his water from the veggies he eats, so since he wasn't eating, I knew he was probably getting dehydrated as well. He drank water and pineapple juice, then I started giving him baby food bananas. I dissolved pellets in pineapple juice and water, added applesauce and some of the baby food bananas, mixed that up and got some of that into him via syringe and spoon.

I brought Mickey in his box into the living room, and he sat and watched TV while I syringed stuff into him at regular intervals. After a couple of hours, I moved him into his large litterbox, which was filled with clean hay. I put some parsley in there with him as well. He tossed the hay around a bit, but also began nibbling on the parsley. He began to fight the syringe a bit, so I began giving him the pellet puree with my fingers while still giving him water by syringe.

I brought him into the dining room a short time ago and set him down to see if he would run around a bit. He immediately zipped into the living room, which is off-limits to him, so I'm guessing he's feeling a bit better. At the moment, he's lounging under my dining room table, and once I've posted this, I'm going to get him moving around a little more to see if the activity will stimulate his system. He's pooped a little, but I don't know if he's peed at all, and it's important that he's doing all of the "Big 4" (eating, drinking, peeing, pooping).

As to what brought this on, my guess is that he got too much fur into his system licking himself after I bathed his butt yesterday. He's been shedding like mad because of the hot weather and the time of year; even thought I'm grooming him regularly, he's still got a ton of fur coming off of him, and I'm thinking more than usual is ending up inside him. Hopefully, he'll pass whatever's causing him trouble tonight, although it probably won't spare us a trip to the vet's.