I Made An Awful Mistake, guilt that my bunny died. Options

[eek]

we had a wild bunny named Mr. Rosie Cottontail, for close to four years. When he was a tiny baby his nest was destroyed by a weed eater at my husbands work, and he was the only survivor. Although wild animals should not be kept as pets, we consulted with the wildlife preserve and due to his contact though bottle feeding and his untimidness towards people, and constuction of commerial business on his home land, we did not rerelease him into the wild. We never held him, because he made it very clear he didnt want to be touched, but he let us scratch his nose and recently under his chin. He would hop up on us and say hi, and wasnt afraid of us. He was fine as long as he initiated the contact. Recently we adopted another bunny a domestic. We took her to the vet for her first exam, and upon advice of the vet, i agreed to bring our Mr. Cottontail for his first exam, to make sure he was the correct weight and everything was going fine. We had been feeding him designer rabbit food, with nuts and corn, and recently I learned these foods are not good for rabbits. I wanted to make sure that he was okay. I was concerned about his weight. Now i realize he had probably just lost his winter coat.
My husband thought the vet visit was a bad idea and that the stress would be too much for him. But i went ahead with it. He had been on plenty of car rides and we have traveled with him in the past. I warned the vet that he wasnt handled and that I feared he would have a heart attack. But they assured me he would be okay, that they were experienced with wild rabbits. I brought him in, they were after some effort able to catch him , wrap him, check his ears, look at his behind and weigh him. They put him back in his carry box, and I left. I didnt open the box in the car in fear he would leap out. I headed directly home, went over to his pen, and opened the box, he was dead in the box. I feel so guilty that i didnt trust my instict. I feel guilty that I caused him death and took him away from the rest of my family. Its hard for me to talk to my husband about this, because i feel so guilty, .. I am not sure how to cope. If i had only not taken him to the doctors today. Before we left the vet told me how healthy he looked. Bunnies are supposed to have a life span of 7 years. I feel like I took those years away. I meant to do the right thing, and i made an awful mistake. Maybe sometimes you can cause harm by doing too much. ...

[joywarrior]

Hi, eek, I feel much compassion for you, and you do write very very well. You communicate very good in your writing. You for sure did choose to do what you believed what right to do, as far as you knew in that moment. Most of us folks have been wounded by others and lied to about our intuition in our past, so that maybe was part of the cause of your not trusting your intuition more strongly. I have been there, too, and I am still needing to work on that. You got valuable truth that you can use for the good, from now on. You and your family do have a real tragedy to have to live thru. In some cases, the vet is wrong and our own intuition is right. I had a domesticated bunny when I was a child, and bunny got sick and then got killed in an unnecessary tragic way, caused by wrongdoings of other persons in my family, and I was only a child then. I felt very sad for him. He, too, was young, like your wild bunny, and could have lived a good happy life much longer, if not for the harm done to him. I will keep you in my prayers. What can I do to help? You have had a big true trauma, as you love your bunny and you knew that he was/is a living animal creature with feelings and a personal soul life. You must feel wretched, as you know that there is nothing you can do now to make him alive again now and undo the hurts. Another time, when I was a child, my cousin and I found a bunny is a similar disaster as you got your wild bunny. Also, another time, a wild bird. Both of these happened at my cousin's home. The adults did wrong, and we were caring for the wild bunny and the bird mostly alone on our own, and each one did die very soon, probably from the trauma of human captivity and handling. I learned from that. All that you did say is very allright and loving and healthy and wise and caring, and your talk is proof that your will is to do only good love, and that you are a very good loving person. I am willing to help. Poor innocent wild bunny. You did not know. You had a very hard decision to make in a time of pressure and influence and conflicting messages from others, and often times we are forced to make a decision when we do not know for sure what is right or wrong to do. So we choose what we believe is right, as far as we know then. Your friend, Maureen