Introducing Oliver … No Make That Olivia

Introducing Olivia, Miss Jersey Wooly

Introducing Olivia

We haven’t been quite sure about getting a companion for Leo. He has pretty much been a shy loner bunny and spent the only date we were able to arrange for him trying to escape the room. So my feelings were quite mixed when a Facebook contact of Blaine’s told him about more rabbits being at the shelter where we had adopted Leo.

Then Blaine was sent pictures of a black rabbit that was really hard to see much of in the images because the rabbit was small enough that we could see the holder’s hands, a lot of black fur and big scared rabbit eyes. The eyes really reminded me of both Leo’s bug eyes and Shadow due to the rabbit’s coloring.  I called the shelter to find out more about the bunny and that is when total confusion began. I was told the bunny was an unfixed male Lionhead rabbit, uh well Blaine’s contact had said it was a spayed female Jersey Wooly. The shelter worker put me on hold to take the rabbit to be checked and then the call got disconnected. So I called back, got a different person who said the rabbit was still back in the clinic being looked at. When she checked on the progress, she said yes it was confirmed that the bunny was a spayed female. She said Oliver was about to become Olivia. Unfortunately, I got disconnected again and when I called back a third time to see about arranging a visit, Olivia was back to being Oliver again and round and round we went.

LOL it was really feeling like shades of Shadow all over again. When we had first taken him to the vet as a two month old for his first check, two vets consulted and insisted he was a girl even though Blaine and I strongly felt male because the little squirt was quite obviously squirting. A few months down the line at his *spay* appointment, the vet realized that was not going to be possible and Shadow needed to be neutered instead. In defense of the shelter, the confusion began when Olivia was brought in with a good number of other rabbits. It seems someone was trying to be their own rabbit rescue but without proper funding or set up and had to turn all the rabbits in when they started reproducing with each other. Olivia came in being identified by the person surrendering the rabbits as male. When the clinic did their check, they realized she was female and did the spay. Somehow though in the confusion of caring for all the new incoming rabbits, the computer didn’t get updated to properly reflect the correction of the sexing. Given the time frame of how many rabbits came in, the shelter did a great job of finding new homes for the bulk of the rabbits within just a few weeks.

My calls got the remaining confusion and records sorted out and when we visited the next day, Oliver was now officially Olivia in fact and in the computer. I picked Olivia up to take her to a private room so we could spend some time with her. Right away petting her we realized she had a situation going on with badly matted fur in many places. We asked for a comb and got to work. In just a few minutes, we were well on our way to creating an awesome dust bunny with quite the pile of excess rabbit fur. Olivia was a sweetheart and very patient allowing us to groom her with very little fussing and no attempts to scratch or bite. She seemed so happy to be petted as we groomed her.

We brought her home and for now have her in a separate pen in the same room as Leo’s cage. We are keeping them to separate spaces and runs until sometime after we get her in for a well check vet visit. The spay is still healing and she would still have hormones for a bit yet. So we are just going to let Leo and Olivia get used to the sound and smell of each other with viewing through safe gates for now. Leo is actually interested and curious about her while she for the most part does not seem upset by his presence. There was one brief incident before we got better fencing in place where Leo was close beside her pen the first night and she couldn’t really see him but tried to lash out at the paws she could see. I will hope that was first night tiredness and fear at not fully being able to see who / what was so close to her new pen.

I guess there is just something for us with black rabbits keeping secrets and being mysterious little beings that has loads of appeal for us …

3 thoughts on “Introducing Oliver … No Make That Olivia

  1. It is so weird how she is making Leo seem like a big bunny. At just four and half pounds, he is a little guy, but Olivia is just three pounds. In comparison, Leo seems so big. Put a couple hands on Olivia and you just don’t see much bunny, she is so petite. She is also very sweet and really enjoying being petted and groomed.

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