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Bright Eyes Sanctuary is a 501c3, nonprofit, tax-exempt, charitable animal sanctuary. We provide sanctuary for unadoptable animals, animals who were never adopted, harder-to-adopt, and special needs animals.
The only animal we rehome are the companion rabbits in our care who are from local animal shelters and whom we are still trying to place in acceptable homes. We provide hospice care for many older, ill and infirm rabbits and other animals including cats, dogs, birds, and a few guinea pigs.
We do not take in animal surrenders from the public. If you have an animal you can no longer keep, you may ask us for advice to eliminate the problem causing you to want to give up your animal, but we are not able to take in your animal for you. That's what the county and municipal animal shelters are for and they are funded by state, county, and/or municipal funds. We are not. We are funded solely through donations from the public.
Animals of All Kinds
We provide sanctuary for special needs rabbits, dogs, birds, and cats and a few guinea pigs. These animals require hours of caring attention every day and thousands of dollars in veterinary bills every year. We need your support to continue this work.
In the future, we will be expanding this section to include more information about the sanctuary animals in our care. In the meanwhile, we highly recommend this book (featuring one of our former sanctuary rabbits, Rebecca) When Your Rabbit Needs Special Care by Lucile Moore and Kathy Smith.
Special Needs Rabbits
— Geriatric
The special needs rabbits in our care have included a 14 year old, arthritic Dutch rabbit named Marley who required expensive daily and weekly arthritis medication. We currently have several older rabbits (not as old as Marley) with chronic conditions such as bladder sludge, kidney disease, or ones who require regular molar trims under anesthesia - a common affliction of the older rabbit, and a costly one. Josephine, Kandy Kiss, Petruchio, and others are some of our senior special needs rabbits.
— Cancer
Then there was Beatrix, about six years old and she was a very sweet mini-lop lady. She came into a local shelter with advanced uterine cancer, which 85% of all female rabbits will develop if they are not spayed by age 5. We went to great expense to spay her, not a risky surgery at all for her, but the cancer had spread to the omentum. It further metastasized throughout her body. We kept her comfortable as long as possible and let her enjoy every bit of life left in her. Currently, Belinda, the sweet, loving mini-lop, was diagnosed with basal cell tumor but we haven't received info on whether it was malignant or not yet.
— Genetic diseases
Orion is a hotot marked mini-rex boy, about one year old who has symptoms of cow pile syndrome, a genetic disorder. That is, whenever he becomes stressed, his poops vary in size from very small to very large, all within one group of 'output.' He requires a very stable, stress-free environment and having his diet carefully monitored. When he has a flare-up, he must be watched for signs of dehydration and not eating.
One of our sanctuary rabbits, Galadriel, has scoliosis, or curvature of the spine which is genetic also.
— Dental disease and more
Earless Glenna
Glenna is the POSTER CHILD for why rabbits should live in the house and be house rabbits. She was apprehended as a stray in the summer of 2009 after several months of attempted capture. She had been living as a stray since at least the previous winter as her ears were frostbitten and just washed right off when given a bath to remove some of the stench of street living. She had a horrible stench caused by being soaked in the urine of male rabbits. Her fur is stained yellow all over her body from this and will stay like that until her next shed.
Glenna had flystrike also when she was caught, or "warbles." This is when flies attack an animal and burrow into their flesh to lay their eggs. The eggs later hatch and the maggots live off the flesh of their victim. It is a truly insidious way to die and it is always fatal unless treated. Glenna's warbles were removed, she was spayed and her teeth were trimmed. She came to Bright Eyes Sanctuary because the vet tech who caught her as a stray could not afford to keep her and pay for regular incisor and molar trims. Rabbits with bad genetics or who have lived on a very poor diet can have their front and back teeth grow incorrectly and this makes it hard for them to chew. They lose weight because they have trouble eating. A mainly pellet diet also causes this problem because pellets are chewed differently than hay and only chewing hay encourages proper tooth alignment for rabbits.
Glenna's case is extreme, her entire jaw joint is out of whack and as of this writing, she can only eat a special rabbit recovery food called Critical Care. She eats it heartily though out of a bowl. It is a sort of gruel made especially for herbivores and it is expensive, cost about $25 a week. Her jaw joint has degraded to the point that she has trouble opening her mouth. Glenna can stay on this food for the rest of her life. Not having to chew may give her jaw a chance to recover. She may ultimately have the jaw joint flushed (arthrocentesis) or even something a little more invasive to relieve the tension on her temporomandibular joint. She will also probably have to stay on Metacam, an NSAID (nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug) for the rest of her life.
But she is one happy rabbit and eats heartily and loves life. She lives to rule the household and is a benevolent alpha rabbit among our warren of sanctuary and foster rabbits as well. Please consider donating toward the cost of Glenna's ongoing care.
CLICK PAYPAL LINK BELOW to DONATE and help Glenna
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— Behavioral issues
Oliver is a former lab rabbit who becomes very insecure when removed from his comfortable, spacious habitat. This insecurity comes from being removed from his siblings at too young an age and being kept in an inappropriately small cage in the laboratory. Although he is sweet and loving, his special needs absolutely must be met or he suffers from great anxiety displayed through aggression.
We also have a few very aggressive rabbits in our care (Bunnicula, and Barracuda) who, although spayed and neutered, may have some as yet undiscovered underlying medical conditions (such as, possibly, incomplete spays or neuters). Or it might just be that they are the exception to the rule and are simply overly aggressive by nature (even though both came to us as young babies). In their case, although the shelters are full of very nice, agreeable rabbits, we feel that every rabbit's value is not measured by their value to humans.
A "nice" or "adoptable" rabbit is measured by how humans might perceive his or her intrinsic value. We feel this is a flawed philosophy. Animals should be valued by how they value their own life; as Albert Schweitzer would say, each animal has a will-to-be and who are we to judge whether they deserve to live or die because of how they appeal to us?
Nevertheless, we have not run across more than a tiny handful of individuals like this. They have merits which many people might be unable to appreciate yet they are welcome to live out their lives here with us.
We provide the very best in veterinary care and the very best foods available to each of our charges. Since we are a multi-species sanctuary, we are uniquely qualified to help rabbit adopters incorporate these fragile prey animals into a mutiple species home of their own.
Please stay tuned as we expand this section of our website to include more information about all the animals in our care and how you can help them and help expand your perception of animals as individual, sentient beings in the process.
Please Help However You Can
Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to help us continue our work. Thank you. You can also check out other ways to help.
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