This is just a tid-bit of bunny drama for you folks..
About a year ago, a friend of mine asked me how to rid his sister's rabbit of fleas. I told him he can get Advantage and use it just like he does on his cat. He thanked me, and that was it. I thought nothing of it, until about a week ago. I'd agreed to take this rabbit and his owner, along with my guinea pigs, in for a check-up at Village Vet, a vet practice about 30 minutes from where I live, and the only one within an hour's drive with a doctor that actually knows how to treat exotics, since it is quite a ways and they were planning to get him neutered soon-- hopefully at Village Vet-- and wanted to get him checked out and make sure he was healthy.
Nobody told me he still had fleas.
Whatever zest for life this bunny had a year ago had been completely sucked out of him. This poor guy had no fur from neck to tail; only his underbelly, head and feet were furred. He had fleas EVERYWHERE. It was mortifying to see. When the tech went to pull him out of the cat carrier, his back foot caught on the lip of the carrier and he just laid there. He was pathetic. The doctor told us that he had second-degree infections on his skin, she prescribed oral antibiotics, and antibiotic flea shampoo and Advantage. He also has a molar spur that he needs anesthesia to have trimmed, so they're going to snip him while they're at it to save the cost of a second trip, anesthesia, and a hospital stay. I just went to bring them hay and a bigger travel cage yesterday and they said he's doing much better. I didn't go in to see him, but they've asked me to trim his nails for him [which, when we went to the vet, were severely overgrown] so I'll be seeing him regularly, and they have another check-up with Dr. Roach in about a week. Hopefully nothing like this will happen to the poor guy again.
Now, yes, the family is somewhat at fault for letting their beloved pet deteriorate before their eyes, there's more to it that that. A vet at another hospital, about ten minutes away, who hasn't updated his exotics knowledge since around the mid-1980s, played a hand in all of this. Dr. Rothman, this guy, had been their vet since they acquired the bunny from a school teacher a few years ago. He was also my vet when I had my first bun at age 12 and didn't think twice about taking my girl to this doctor. Since they did, he's had sticky stool/sludge, as did my first bunny. He still has it. Dr. Rothman did nothing about this, much like he did with my bunny. However, he also told this family that there was NOTHING you can do to get fleas off of a rabbit. Nothing. So they trusted him. And this disaster happened. As an aside, they also said that he's never checked Stew's, eyes/ears/teeth, that they'd seen, during his check ups.
So.. yeah. I fucking hate vets who don't know what they're doing. I doubt any of you remember, but I had a tiff with a similar vet a few months ago.