On a Pet Rabbit
I came across this picture yesterday and, when I'd finished almost dieing of cute, thought a bit about 'our' rabbit. Then I thought I'd tell you about him. The advantage Steve Hood had in photographing one of his bunnies was that it was a lightish grey. Our rabbit was black. He'd pose occasionally, but photos did not turn out well. Just think black rabbit. With personality.
Oh yes, our rabbit most definitely had personality, by the bucket load. This might have been because we all interacted with him, rather than just confining him to his hutch and run out in the yard. But he might have had Personality anyway and had we so confined him we'd have missed so much!
It was D's twelfth birthday and she did that emotional blackmail thing that females can be so good at.
"If I'm going to be a Vet," she stated, "I need to know how to look after animals."
"If you're going to have a pet animal, you are going to look after it. I don't want it left to me." I replied. We weren't having a dog, we live in the centre of a busy city, nowhere to walk it really. We're never having a cat, sorry H, I'm allergic to them and I'm not going on anti-histamines for the rest of the cat's life! We're not having a hamster or gerbil - nasty biting things which can get out and hide around the place, also tend to be short-lived. Plus we don't really have somewhere suitable to put a cage. Ditto for a fish tank, and fish aren't really pets anyhow.
Now Guinea Pigs are reasonablely good. They can be friendly and they chunter away happily as they go about their porcine buisness (for all they aren't actually pigs.) Handle them regularly and they're quite happy to chunter away to you too. I had a Guinea Pig when I was about five. I seem to remember Dad did most of the cleaning out etc, Mum not being keen on 'small furries'. I was a bit young for it, poor thing, and we didn't interact much at all. I know about Guinea Pigs' friendliness from other people's pets. D rather thought that a rabbit might be fun. H wondered about that, a cousin had had a rabbit which had lived in a hutch. Very Dull.
Anyhew D and I went to investigate hutches - you get the hutch first, then the rabbit. I may be a bit mad, I'm not daft! We found a nice hutch - two 'rooms', one with solid door for 'sleeping', one with wire mesh door for 'day use' - looking out, feeding and watering. I think we got the shop to deliver it. It's a good four foot long, with long legs to get it up off the ground for ease of access, for us.
Anyhew, the hutch shop had a card in the window saying someone had bunnies for sale. So we went and looked. One of their rabbits had had a litter a while back and yes, they did still have one for sale. A little black ball of fluff. I think we'd also purchased an animal carrying case (gets expensive having pets, even a rabbit) and we took quivering ball of black fluff home on the bus. Well, it was either that or walking home with it, swinging the carrier. Or trying not to swing the carrier.
D took to the rabbit at once. She took it into the front room, along with its carrier so that it had somewhere to 'go', and spent all evening and part of the night there with it. After that H invested in some hardboard and some two-by-one and constructed barriers and furniture protectors. Bunny, it seemed, was dead keen on getting behind things - like the TV, which was all wires. That was boarded off. He was also quite keen about digging into the settee around the base or from behind, that was also barricaded off. Of course he could take a flying leap and get behind the settee if he really wanted to. So he was only allowed in the front room if someone was with him. That way he'd stay visible, or we could hoik him out from places he shouldn't have gone. He seemed to learn pretty quickly.
And so the routine developed. D would return home from school of an afternoon. She'd sort herself out, let Bunny out of his run, get the carrier/commode and they'd both go take up residence in the front room. Sometimes we'd want to watch something on TV, so we'd go in and sit in a armchair - at which point Bunny would come round the side of the chair asking for attention. Drop arm over the chair arm, rub Bunny's head. Stop. 'Keep rubbing' Bunny would nudge our hands. So we'd keep rubbing until he'd had enough - usually a while after we had.
As Bunny matured he got a bit enthusiastic about D, so we took him to the Vet for 'the chop'. Honestly, the price of anything Veterinary. Made me very glad we got our healthcare on the NHS! That night D stayed with Bunny in the front room. He was continually fiddling with his stitches, so in the end we made a bunny collar - a bit like the lampshade collars dogs get. We made it from a cereal packet and parcel tape. All those years spent watching Blue Peter had not been wasted. Bunny went crazy. He could no longer see behind him! We took the scissors and cut the collar so that he could see as usual but couldn't access his stitches. It seemed to work. He was much more reasonable after that, and more friendly.
The daily routine went something like:- get up, let Bunny out of hutch into run, or even let him run around the yard (it's all brick walls so no way he could get out) while you clean out the hutch. Spray hutch with 'cleaner', scrub, allow to dry, put old newspapers on bottom, tear up other newspapers as bedding (having a shredder then would have been useful), put in clean hay. Change water in the water bottle, change water in the dish, put new food in dish (in run). Then D shot off to school.
As mentioned before, when she came home she and Bunny would go into the front room for the evening. When H came home from work Bunny would run up to greet him. They'd then lie on the floor whispering sweet nothings to each other. This could get a litttle hairy when I was trying to get dinner on the table but, provided they both stayed still, wasn't too bad.
Sometimes Bunny would sit on an armchair watching TV, and he was actually watching it. We had a black-and-white TV then but he liked to watch athletics, particularly races, and Wimbledon. D appeared to watch more or less anything, doing her homework the meanwhile! Sometimes we'd go into the front room to check on D, or get something, and bunny would turn from his TV viewing, grin and turn back. So much more responsive than teenage D!
Should you have anything edible with you, Bunny was interested. He'd like a taste, if not a share, please, thank you so very much. Big brown eyes watching, ears cocked, nose twitching trying to identify what it was you had. If you had sweets the merest rustle of a wrapper would bring him. If you had something on a plate then he'd be up on the settee with you having a sniff at the very least. Once H had a donut on a plate which he put down on the settee briefly. Cue black blur flying past and lo, empty plate. Bunny had nicked the donut!
Another time I had toast and marmalade. Bunny came up onto my lap to investigate. I held the toast out at arm's length. Bunny practically tried to walk out along my arm to get at the toast, but his balance wasn't that good so he couldn't. We didn't feed him 'people food'. He was a rabbit, he got rabbit food - the kind sold by the sack at the pet shop. This was supplemented by hay and the flowers which formed when Spinach Beet in the yard bolted. Oh, he loved spinach beet flowers and would hoover them up. He quite liked spinach beet leaves too, but the flowers . . .
Occasionally he'd have a mad spell and would rush from the back room, along the passage into the front room, round the front room and back along the passage wall-of-death style! That was more in the summer when we keep the doors open, except the front room door was usually closed to allow D privacy (and to keep The Teeth confined somewhere reasonably safe) The Teeth he was too. Fortunately he didn't investigate the soft furnishings too often. He tried nibbling parts of the dining chairs occasionally - the 'stretcher' bits between the legs. We'd chase him off them so he didn't do it much. What he was a real Tartar with was wires. Find a wire, cut it! He did it to the phone so often that H invested in some of the plugs you get at the ends of phone wires and some special pliers for putting them on! Good thing H is an engineer, and knows about telephones. Usually we tried to keep the phone wires out of sight and reach by The Teeth.
We used to go on holiday each year (usually to the Isle of Wight) Fortunately we heard about a Bunny Hotel over in Bedhampton. We checked it out, fine. The lady who ran it even came and collected Bunny, then delivered him when she got back - thus saving us all a long bus journey. Bunny seemed to enjoy himself. The lady also had a brown and white Springer Spaniel. Apparently Bunny and Spaniel would spend ages nose-to-nose through the wire of the rabbit run.
Later we found a Bunny Minder who lived a lot nearer, so I'd deliver Bunny to her, on my bicycle, and get him back in the same way. By then we had a much smaller carrier - plenty big enough for Bunny but much easier to fix securely to the bike.
Rabbits also moult, twice per year. Other times they hold onto their fur. We'd occasionally comb or brush Bunny. He didn't seem to mind too much, provided you didn't try to be to thorough. Of course, if we didn't brush him that day he'd leave piles of black fur around the place! Long-haired varieties need to be combed/brushed daily or they get matted, which is not a good look, or healthy for them. If you get an Angora rabbit you can try collecting the combings and, eventually, spin up enough to knit something really soft.
Then, at 17, D went to college. It was an agricultural college. Students could take some animals with them, like their horse. Pet rabbits, however, were not permitted. So guess who ended up looking after Bunny! He missed D, I think. He used to get put to bed a lot earlier than when she was at home, I do know that.
One winter morning I let him out of his hutch, got on with the cleaning up, then looked round to put him in his run. Hunted round the yard, in all the places he could squeeze in behind the various pots. Twice. No Bunny. Eventually I looked the back room - and there he was lying in front of the fire! Hard hearted I picked him up, gave him a cuddle and put him out in the yard. He had hay etc where he could huddle. In the heat of summer he'd lie flattened out on the concrete. Good thing the run was at the shady end of the yard.
The end came the following year. He developed abscesses on his jaw and neck (apparently rabbits are prone to this), one after the other. We'd take him to the Vet to get them cleaned up. He'd recover, another would develop. Other than that he seemed to be fairly 'cheerful' and acted like his normal self. Until one morning he was not a happy bunny. Not at all. He just sat there. Not interested in anything, not even Spinach Beet flowers. So after consulting with D, away at college, I took him to the Vet for the final time. And stayed with him while the drugs took effect.
Now we have two pet carriers, a hutch in the garden which doubles as a cold cupboard (of course we've cleaned it since he went!) over the Christmas period when our fridge is too full, the run we got rid of, it took up too much space, the bins live there now. And, of course, we have a lot of memories.
You see, given the opportunity pet rabbits can develop real characters. In the wild rabbits are sociable animals. In captivity they don't do well if kept in the same hutch/run, and will breed like, well, rabbits if you pair them wrong! But get them young enough and they can become an active and involved member of the family. You can even take them for walks!
One time on the Island we met a man with a cockatoo on his shoulder and a largish grey rabbit on a leash - we'd seen them getting on a bus at one point. The man said he'd trained the rabbit to wear a harness and walk, ok hop along, on the leash. He took it all over the island and it seemed to enjoy travelling. No scared-stiff-bunny acts for that rabbit.
Other people train their rabbits to jump, and they can jump quite high when they put their tiny minds to it. There are rabbit jumping sort of Gymkhanas held in various places where leaping bunnies get to compete. If you had a large enough yard/garden you could always train your rabbit to show jump - just don't try riding it as well! You see, Dear Reader, there is so much more to pet rabbits than something stuck in a hutch.
Interested in having a bunny of your very own? Invest in a hutch, run, carrier, brush/comb and barricading for areas you don't want Bunny to access - if you let it indoors. Meanwhile there is an increasing populations of House Rabbits - these have hutches indoors and are allowed the run of their owners apartment/ground floor or even whole house. Like I said, they have the personality, you just have to invest in some rabbit proofing. Oh, and training it not to run around your feet while you're carrying things might be a good move too!
Y'all have a good, and bunny filled, day now!
Oh yes, our rabbit most definitely had personality, by the bucket load. This might have been because we all interacted with him, rather than just confining him to his hutch and run out in the yard. But he might have had Personality anyway and had we so confined him we'd have missed so much!
It was D's twelfth birthday and she did that emotional blackmail thing that females can be so good at.
"If I'm going to be a Vet," she stated, "I need to know how to look after animals."
"If you're going to have a pet animal, you are going to look after it. I don't want it left to me." I replied. We weren't having a dog, we live in the centre of a busy city, nowhere to walk it really. We're never having a cat, sorry H, I'm allergic to them and I'm not going on anti-histamines for the rest of the cat's life! We're not having a hamster or gerbil - nasty biting things which can get out and hide around the place, also tend to be short-lived. Plus we don't really have somewhere suitable to put a cage. Ditto for a fish tank, and fish aren't really pets anyhow.
Now Guinea Pigs are reasonablely good. They can be friendly and they chunter away happily as they go about their porcine buisness (for all they aren't actually pigs.) Handle them regularly and they're quite happy to chunter away to you too. I had a Guinea Pig when I was about five. I seem to remember Dad did most of the cleaning out etc, Mum not being keen on 'small furries'. I was a bit young for it, poor thing, and we didn't interact much at all. I know about Guinea Pigs' friendliness from other people's pets. D rather thought that a rabbit might be fun. H wondered about that, a cousin had had a rabbit which had lived in a hutch. Very Dull.
Anyhew D and I went to investigate hutches - you get the hutch first, then the rabbit. I may be a bit mad, I'm not daft! We found a nice hutch - two 'rooms', one with solid door for 'sleeping', one with wire mesh door for 'day use' - looking out, feeding and watering. I think we got the shop to deliver it. It's a good four foot long, with long legs to get it up off the ground for ease of access, for us.
Anyhew, the hutch shop had a card in the window saying someone had bunnies for sale. So we went and looked. One of their rabbits had had a litter a while back and yes, they did still have one for sale. A little black ball of fluff. I think we'd also purchased an animal carrying case (gets expensive having pets, even a rabbit) and we took quivering ball of black fluff home on the bus. Well, it was either that or walking home with it, swinging the carrier. Or trying not to swing the carrier.
D took to the rabbit at once. She took it into the front room, along with its carrier so that it had somewhere to 'go', and spent all evening and part of the night there with it. After that H invested in some hardboard and some two-by-one and constructed barriers and furniture protectors. Bunny, it seemed, was dead keen on getting behind things - like the TV, which was all wires. That was boarded off. He was also quite keen about digging into the settee around the base or from behind, that was also barricaded off. Of course he could take a flying leap and get behind the settee if he really wanted to. So he was only allowed in the front room if someone was with him. That way he'd stay visible, or we could hoik him out from places he shouldn't have gone. He seemed to learn pretty quickly.
And so the routine developed. D would return home from school of an afternoon. She'd sort herself out, let Bunny out of his run, get the carrier/commode and they'd both go take up residence in the front room. Sometimes we'd want to watch something on TV, so we'd go in and sit in a armchair - at which point Bunny would come round the side of the chair asking for attention. Drop arm over the chair arm, rub Bunny's head. Stop. 'Keep rubbing' Bunny would nudge our hands. So we'd keep rubbing until he'd had enough - usually a while after we had.
As Bunny matured he got a bit enthusiastic about D, so we took him to the Vet for 'the chop'. Honestly, the price of anything Veterinary. Made me very glad we got our healthcare on the NHS! That night D stayed with Bunny in the front room. He was continually fiddling with his stitches, so in the end we made a bunny collar - a bit like the lampshade collars dogs get. We made it from a cereal packet and parcel tape. All those years spent watching Blue Peter had not been wasted. Bunny went crazy. He could no longer see behind him! We took the scissors and cut the collar so that he could see as usual but couldn't access his stitches. It seemed to work. He was much more reasonable after that, and more friendly.
The daily routine went something like:- get up, let Bunny out of hutch into run, or even let him run around the yard (it's all brick walls so no way he could get out) while you clean out the hutch. Spray hutch with 'cleaner', scrub, allow to dry, put old newspapers on bottom, tear up other newspapers as bedding (having a shredder then would have been useful), put in clean hay. Change water in the water bottle, change water in the dish, put new food in dish (in run). Then D shot off to school.
As mentioned before, when she came home she and Bunny would go into the front room for the evening. When H came home from work Bunny would run up to greet him. They'd then lie on the floor whispering sweet nothings to each other. This could get a litttle hairy when I was trying to get dinner on the table but, provided they both stayed still, wasn't too bad.
Sometimes Bunny would sit on an armchair watching TV, and he was actually watching it. We had a black-and-white TV then but he liked to watch athletics, particularly races, and Wimbledon. D appeared to watch more or less anything, doing her homework the meanwhile! Sometimes we'd go into the front room to check on D, or get something, and bunny would turn from his TV viewing, grin and turn back. So much more responsive than teenage D!
Should you have anything edible with you, Bunny was interested. He'd like a taste, if not a share, please, thank you so very much. Big brown eyes watching, ears cocked, nose twitching trying to identify what it was you had. If you had sweets the merest rustle of a wrapper would bring him. If you had something on a plate then he'd be up on the settee with you having a sniff at the very least. Once H had a donut on a plate which he put down on the settee briefly. Cue black blur flying past and lo, empty plate. Bunny had nicked the donut!
Another time I had toast and marmalade. Bunny came up onto my lap to investigate. I held the toast out at arm's length. Bunny practically tried to walk out along my arm to get at the toast, but his balance wasn't that good so he couldn't. We didn't feed him 'people food'. He was a rabbit, he got rabbit food - the kind sold by the sack at the pet shop. This was supplemented by hay and the flowers which formed when Spinach Beet in the yard bolted. Oh, he loved spinach beet flowers and would hoover them up. He quite liked spinach beet leaves too, but the flowers . . .
Occasionally he'd have a mad spell and would rush from the back room, along the passage into the front room, round the front room and back along the passage wall-of-death style! That was more in the summer when we keep the doors open, except the front room door was usually closed to allow D privacy (and to keep The Teeth confined somewhere reasonably safe) The Teeth he was too. Fortunately he didn't investigate the soft furnishings too often. He tried nibbling parts of the dining chairs occasionally - the 'stretcher' bits between the legs. We'd chase him off them so he didn't do it much. What he was a real Tartar with was wires. Find a wire, cut it! He did it to the phone so often that H invested in some of the plugs you get at the ends of phone wires and some special pliers for putting them on! Good thing H is an engineer, and knows about telephones. Usually we tried to keep the phone wires out of sight and reach by The Teeth.
We used to go on holiday each year (usually to the Isle of Wight) Fortunately we heard about a Bunny Hotel over in Bedhampton. We checked it out, fine. The lady who ran it even came and collected Bunny, then delivered him when she got back - thus saving us all a long bus journey. Bunny seemed to enjoy himself. The lady also had a brown and white Springer Spaniel. Apparently Bunny and Spaniel would spend ages nose-to-nose through the wire of the rabbit run.
Later we found a Bunny Minder who lived a lot nearer, so I'd deliver Bunny to her, on my bicycle, and get him back in the same way. By then we had a much smaller carrier - plenty big enough for Bunny but much easier to fix securely to the bike.
Rabbits also moult, twice per year. Other times they hold onto their fur. We'd occasionally comb or brush Bunny. He didn't seem to mind too much, provided you didn't try to be to thorough. Of course, if we didn't brush him that day he'd leave piles of black fur around the place! Long-haired varieties need to be combed/brushed daily or they get matted, which is not a good look, or healthy for them. If you get an Angora rabbit you can try collecting the combings and, eventually, spin up enough to knit something really soft.
Then, at 17, D went to college. It was an agricultural college. Students could take some animals with them, like their horse. Pet rabbits, however, were not permitted. So guess who ended up looking after Bunny! He missed D, I think. He used to get put to bed a lot earlier than when she was at home, I do know that.
One winter morning I let him out of his hutch, got on with the cleaning up, then looked round to put him in his run. Hunted round the yard, in all the places he could squeeze in behind the various pots. Twice. No Bunny. Eventually I looked the back room - and there he was lying in front of the fire! Hard hearted I picked him up, gave him a cuddle and put him out in the yard. He had hay etc where he could huddle. In the heat of summer he'd lie flattened out on the concrete. Good thing the run was at the shady end of the yard.
The end came the following year. He developed abscesses on his jaw and neck (apparently rabbits are prone to this), one after the other. We'd take him to the Vet to get them cleaned up. He'd recover, another would develop. Other than that he seemed to be fairly 'cheerful' and acted like his normal self. Until one morning he was not a happy bunny. Not at all. He just sat there. Not interested in anything, not even Spinach Beet flowers. So after consulting with D, away at college, I took him to the Vet for the final time. And stayed with him while the drugs took effect.
Now we have two pet carriers, a hutch in the garden which doubles as a cold cupboard (of course we've cleaned it since he went!) over the Christmas period when our fridge is too full, the run we got rid of, it took up too much space, the bins live there now. And, of course, we have a lot of memories.
You see, given the opportunity pet rabbits can develop real characters. In the wild rabbits are sociable animals. In captivity they don't do well if kept in the same hutch/run, and will breed like, well, rabbits if you pair them wrong! But get them young enough and they can become an active and involved member of the family. You can even take them for walks!
One time on the Island we met a man with a cockatoo on his shoulder and a largish grey rabbit on a leash - we'd seen them getting on a bus at one point. The man said he'd trained the rabbit to wear a harness and walk, ok hop along, on the leash. He took it all over the island and it seemed to enjoy travelling. No scared-stiff-bunny acts for that rabbit.
Other people train their rabbits to jump, and they can jump quite high when they put their tiny minds to it. There are rabbit jumping sort of Gymkhanas held in various places where leaping bunnies get to compete. If you had a large enough yard/garden you could always train your rabbit to show jump - just don't try riding it as well! You see, Dear Reader, there is so much more to pet rabbits than something stuck in a hutch.
Interested in having a bunny of your very own? Invest in a hutch, run, carrier, brush/comb and barricading for areas you don't want Bunny to access - if you let it indoors. Meanwhile there is an increasing populations of House Rabbits - these have hutches indoors and are allowed the run of their owners apartment/ground floor or even whole house. Like I said, they have the personality, you just have to invest in some rabbit proofing. Oh, and training it not to run around your feet while you're carrying things might be a good move too!
Y'all have a good, and bunny filled, day now!