Shadow the Puppy Bunny

Shadow on the bed checking things out.
 Shadow just has to get in to this corner
Shadow boxes himself in

Shadow was a very happy bouncy puppy bunny, always ready to have fun. He would steal your heart with his wonderful playfulness and sweet nature.  He was always ready to hop up and introduce himself.  Like a dog, he considered everyone to be his friend.  He had that same doggie way of tipping his head to the side as if he was asking a question.  It was just so much fun to watch him checking everything out.  While Tigger was quite a serious rabbit, Shadow was all lightness and play.

He just loved to run around like crazy and play with things.  Unlike most rabbits, Shadow liked to be chased.  He would run up to you and then take off again looking back to get you to chase him.  Shadow would just love it when Blaine would instigate the chase by pretending to charge at him.

Shadow loved to be petted, especially his head.  If either of us started to pet Tigger and Shadow was nowhere in sight, within just a minute or two, he would be charging up and flopping down.  If you weren’t petting his head, you would get the little head butt on your palm as a reminder to pet his head.  He would also burrow under your hand to position his head just right for petting.

The little boy was decidedly a beggar too.  He would get up on his hind legs and do the begging dance to get his bunny biscuits.  Once he realized that the top of the cages was the closest to where the biscuits were kept, he would leap up there and dance around.  He got so crazy one time he hopped himself off the side of the cage while he was up on two legs begging.  After that, we would position ourselves right at the side of the cage so he couldn’t hop off in his excitement.  Instead, we would have a bunny batting his front paws against us if we took too long getting those bunny treats out of the container.

Also like a dog, he loved to dig.  We had uncovered litter boxes until Shadow came along.  Then Shadow showed us he saw the litter boxes as multi purpose.  He would use them quite nicely to do his business and then he would dig them all out.  His skills at excavation were quite remarkable.  He could empty a whole litter box of pellets and have it spread out over a six-foot area.  We had to invest in a number of litter boxes with tops which both rabbits actually loved since the tops provided another hang out spot for them.  We had to get more small throw rugs so that the plastic tops weren’t quite so slippery.  We used Acco binder clips to fold and shape the corners of the rugs to be a close fit  to the tops.

We read at one point that use a spray bottle filled with water and squirting a misbehaving bunny could deter bad behavior.  Tigger did not like being squirted with water and would stop, but we gave up on using that to deter Shadow.  We could give him several squirts and he would just shake himself off like a little dog and keep on going with whatever he was doing which was usually chewing something.

Coming Wednesday, Shadow the bunny goat …

 

Shadow Meets the Vet

Shadow checking things outWe had a little bit of time to get to know Shadow before we went in to the vet for a once over check up.  We weren’t expecting any surprises.  We believed we had a boy / girl pairing and were keeping the two rabbits apart until they could be fixed.  Granted, Shadow was quite a tiny bunny, so we weren’t basing our feeling that we had a boy on anything we saw.  Rather, we thought Shadow was a boy due to basic bunny functions.  Shadow was still in the process of learning to use a litter box.  While learning, if Shadow was sitting by a wall and the urge hit, the little squirt would spray the wall behind, not the floor underneath. Also, Shadow just seemed so very boyish in actions and play which was a real contrast to the dainty femininity that Tigger displayed.  They seemed to be opposites.

So on visiting the vet, we were quite surprised when the vet told us we had another girl.  We strongly questioned that opinion based on the spraying activity we had seen and Shadow was taken out of the room for an exam by another vet.  The second opinion was the same that we had another girl.  We were told we should go ahead and schedule both spays for the end of August.

We did set up the appointments, but didn’t say much until we hit the car when Blaine exclaimed he knew a male spray when he saw one.  I agreed and said I didn’t think the vets had this one right and we would proceed as we had been assuming that we had a boy / girl pair.  It did make for a weird couple of months wondering about Shadow’s he /she status.  Although we really felt we had a boy, just in case we were wrong, we weren’t quite sure whether to refer to him / her or say he / she.  Mostly, we just stuck to saying Shadow and trying not to wrap our brains around the confusion.

Jumping ahead instead of leaving you hanging for the rest of the story, a couple of weeks before the date of the spays, I noticed the fur starting to change color in two oval shapes on Shadow’s underside.  The placement looked just exactly right for what I remembered from our family bunny Thumper’s male rabbit anatomy.  I told Blaine that I thought that Shadow had a surprise planned for the vet and was dropping down testicles.  I remembered that had occurred with Thumper too between about three and four months of age.

When it came the day of the “spays”, we had intended to tell the vet right away that we thought Shadow had a surprise for him.  However, as I wrote before, Tigger injured her teeth the morning of the surgeries and when we arrived at the vet, we were talking about the need to examine Tigger’s injury and forgot to mention Shadow’s new revelation.  We got a call shortly after we left.  It was the vet telling us that he couldn’t spay Shadow, he was going to have to neuter him.  He told us Shadow was going to be a bit more peeved than the usual male rabbit after the surgery since the vet tech had done a belly shave before the vet had done his exam and realized the tummy shave wasn’t going to be needed.  Fortunately for us, Shadow was a very good boy, a real little gentleman, and his early vet visits and surgery were no problem at all.

Coming next week, meet Shadow the puppy bunny …

 

First Meeting with Shadow

Baby ShadowEleven years ago on July 4th, we met Shadow for the first time.  Tigger was about four months old.  We had just boarded her for a weekend a couple of weeks earlier.  She had been so lonely, it had made us realize we needed to find her a bunny buddy.  We hadn’t had any opportunity to make plans for that or explore our options.  On the 4th, we were just back at the mall pet store to pick up some supplies for Tigger.

As we came in, we saw that there was a new batch of baby bunnies, more than a dozen in a front window enclosure.  I went back to the aisles to get what we needed for Tigger while Blaine stopped to pet some little bunny heads.  He reached his hand in to pet those closest to where he was standing.  Four feet across the enclosure the tiniest of the babies, an all black bunny, saw Blaine’s hand and came running at top speed over to Blaine.  The bunny rabbit sat up on hind legs and started nibbling at the hairs on Blaine’s hand.

I was told about the racing over introduction, I didn’t actually see it.  What I did see as I walked back to the front of the store with things for Tigger was Blaine holding a really cute and very tiny black baby bunny in his hands.  Looking at the two of them, even without hearing the story, I knew they had chosen each other just as Tigger and I had chosen each other two months before.  It was clear we were going home with more than just food and supplies for Tigger.  I hoped things would work out all right with them liking each other, but that was a problem for the future.  Right now I was looking at one of the cutest baby bunnies I had ever seen.  The rabbit was a ball of fluffy black fur all over.  It looked like Blaine was holding a Tribble (old Star Trek reference) with big ears.

For the moment, we needed to make arrangements for our new little friend.  We made sure we were bringing home enough supplies for two bunnies.  The pet shop didn’t have a cage for a rabbit, so we were going to have to take our new friend home and then find one somewhere else.  We knew enough to know that the two rabbits would need to be separate until we were sure what sex they both were and then likely until after being fixed if we had a boy / girl pair.  We also needed to find out more about safely introducing rabbits to each other.  Since Tigger was about four months old, she was nearing her full size while our new bunny was just a two month old baby.  Tigger at four pounds was currently twice the size of the new bunny.

Shadow nappingI was a bit concerned bringing our new bunny rabbit home without a cage.  Everything I had read had indicated it was a good idea to let rabbits settle in to their cage and feel safe and then allow them to explore their new surroundings as they felt comfortable.  Tigger had followed that pattern and had hung back in her cage the first few days before she really took off making every space she explored her own.

My fears of the new bunny feeling insecure or afraid were unfounded.  After we got home, I let our new friend explore the new surroundings while Blaine headed out to find a cage.  While Blaine was gone, our new little friend showed no sense of needing any place to hideout.  The bunny hopped all over the room, excitedly checking everything out and then hopped up on a pile of papers we had on a shelf of a rolling file cart and took a nap.  After the nap, our new little buddy continued on with the explorations.  Our new friend had so much energy and interest in everything!

Blaine returned with a cage which we set up next to Tigger’s so that they could get used to seeing and being close to each other.  We hadn’t decided on a name yet for our new friend.  We were talking about Ebony or Ebunny.  The next day, while letting our new friend run around, I kept losing him / her (who knew at that point?).  That is when I realized for the first time that we had brought home a rabbit who understood the concept of camouflage.  Our new bunny friend would find the darkest corner in the room or the darkest piece of furniture and would sit absolutely still blending in so well that it was a case of now you see the rabbit and now you don’t.

When Blaine returned home from work, I told him I thought we should call our new friend Shadow because of the bunny’s uncanny ability to find and blend into the shadows.  Shadow came to be such an appropriate name, first for the ability to hide in plain sight and then later being overshadowed by Tigger at times, but also playing her willing shadow and accomplice at others.

Coming on Friday, Shadow visits the vet for the first time …

 

Layers of Personality

Shadow at RestLast week I wrote about Shadow’s chewing habits which my other half said  made him sound like nothing but a bad bunny.  That is the difficulty with sticking with one subject per post, lack of the full picture.

Shadow is Mr. Personable with a whole lot of  dimensions.  Most of the layers of his personality are on the light, bright and happy side.  The one way he does use his oh so serious dark exterior is to play bunny Shadow Man.  He loves to hide in plain sight, picking the darkest pieces of furniture or rugs to hang out in front of or on.  He virtually disappears into the shadows when he does that and takes you by complete surprise when you come upon him, earning him the nickname “Boo”.

To give the best overall description of him, Shadow is like a full of energy puppy.  He races around, bounces up and down with happiness, gets into everything and loves to see you and play with you.  He will zoom up and zoom away looking back over his shoulder.  He wants you to play chase with him.

Shadow is a handsome rabbit.  He is all over black except for some graying on his nose now that he is older.  His vet tech thinks it gives him a sexier look.  His fur is satin with a beautiful glowing sheen to it.  He has a slim trim athletic build.  He runs like an athlete and has been a fearless jumper.  Not always a smart jumper, but a fearless one.  We had to learn what was needed to keep him safe. 

He has comedy in his soul.  You can always count on Shadow doing something to make you laugh.  One time I was on the floor on all fours face to face with Tigger when I felt something tugging on my oversized T-shirt.  I figured it was Shadow pulling on the hem.  When I glanced down, I realized my shirt was hanging down to the floor and he had hopped inside with me.  Now I was looking at a bunny peeking out at me through the V neck opening.  I felt like Mama Kangaroo looking down at baby peeking out of the pouch.

Shadow is a roamer, always doing the rounds of his territory, checking things out and looking for things to do.  When I am working, I can count on him coming in at times and nudging me on the ankle.  He loves to have his head petted and isn’t afraid to ask for attention.  If you touch his head, you will find yourself with a bunny flopped down and ready for a long haul session.  If your hand strays from his head, you will find the head butting your hand as a reminder to keep focused on his head, stroking his nose and massaging around his ears and cheeks.

Shadow is the rabbit people go to if they want a bunny hug.  He is not thrilled about being picked up, but seems to realize that the humans need it from time to time.  His face reads like a little boy being hugged by female relatives, “All right I know I have to, but let’s make this quick, okay?”

Each rabbit I have come to know well has had a unique combination of traits making up their personality.  It makes it such a wonderful adventure getting to know and love them.