Friday, April 21, 2006

Tokki... a trip to the vet

Well, I finally took my rabbit to the vet to get it checked out... It took a lot of searching to find a vet. There are vets everywhere in Korea, but they are all for dogs. Most people that have a pet in Korea, have some sort of small yappy dog. As a result, most of the vets only really treat dogs.

I think my mistake with Mangchi (the rabbit that I had last time, that died) was taking her to a vet that didn't really know much about treating rabbits. She had been sick for a little while and I took her to the vet. He gave her some pink medicine. What I have read on the Net says that a lot of vets that don't know rabbits will give them the same meds that they give to dogs, many of which (including a very common pink medicine) will kill rabbits.

Anyway, I did a bunch of searching and had a hard time finding anything. A friend of mine did some searching for me on the Net and found a vet that treats many kinds of animals, including rabbits. AKRIS is the name of the place. They have a big website (all in Korean, of course) with information and such. It is about a 30 minute ride on the subway or about a 20 minute taxi ride (not too bad... it only cost around 10000 won (~$12 CA). It is near YangJae Station. The place is open from 9am until 11pm, which makes it a bit more convenient. The vet spoke English, which was great, and seemed to know what she was talking about.

Well...
When I got Tokki (when I arrived in Korea), I was told that it was a male, and he was a dwarf rabbit. Well, Tokki is actually a she, and not much of a dwarf. The vet said Tokki is only a dwarf if she has some lion genes in her... she is bigger than a dwarf rabbit grows to be and she has an uncommon mane... and extra long hair in other places, on the hips, etc (kinda in patches). Funny.
Tokki got a couple of shots - VHD (to do with a viral causing diarrhea), and deworming. She also had her toenails clipped... they were SOOO long. The vet was surprised at how long they were. I am not sure when they were last trimmed, if ever. I tried to clip some of them, but Tokki didn't much like me touching her feet, so it was a bit of a losing battle on my front.
The visit to the vet, shots included, cost me 21000won (about $25 CA). I was expecting it to be much higher.
Conclusion: Tokki is a healthy little girl.

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