International Rabbit Day 2014 Is Coming!

International Rabbit Day 2014

I first learned about International Rabbit Day a few years ago.  Someone sent me a link to the website Holiday Insights with information about how the day started and the intent to promote the well-being of rabbits.  It is usually set for the Fourth Saturday or Sunday in September. Holiday Insights has the date listed for Saturday this year which would be the 27th.

I see that House Rabbit Society is planning on Sunday the 28th for observing International Rabbit Day. I say why not make it an International Rabbit Weekend and focus some attention on our big eared friends for both days.

Here is one suggestion for observing the day/s:  “Celebrate this special day with your pet rabbit. Learn a little more about him and how to properly care for his needs. If you don’t have a pet, maybe today is the day to get a pet rabbit! ”  Visit the Holiday Insights page for more information on the meaning and origin of International Rabbit Day.

 

Throwback Thursday: Stunt Bunny Tigger & Leo’s New Version

What bunny parents have to do to keep a Tigger safe ...So this throwback picture shows what we had to do to keep Tigger safe from her crazy daredevil stunt bunny desire.  She managed to do a bunny bump and get in to a closet. You can read the full story by clicking here to find out just how crazy dangerous to her well-being this bunny stunt was. When it came to getting in to things Tigger was pure stubborn determination.

Leo has his own version of this which is fortunately not as dangerous as Tigger’s stunt. Leo’s just gets him in to a forbidden bedroom. The bedroom doorway latch doesn’t do the job it is supposed to do. If you push on the door it will open. Well little Leo discovered that if he gave the door a bunny side bump, he could get in to that bedroom anytime he wanted to.

So I’m a bit slow sometimes with Leo to catch on to things I should bunnyproof. Leo has been a kinder gentler bunny in regards to being bad. So when he decides to go for it, I’m usually a few steps behind trying to catch up to what needs to be done. Leo managed a good number of bunny bumps to the door and unauthorized romps around the bedroom and hiding sessions under the bed before I realized that I needed to block the door. I would be busy doing something and would hear a funny bump noise and sure enough when I looked, the bedroom door would be open and Leo would be either nowhere in sight or just a fluffy white bunny behind quickly on the way to disappearing inside.

Leo on top of the bedroom doorway barricadeIt took some refining to get the barricade of the doorway it so it worked right. You can see Leo here sitting on top of his first version of the doorway barricade. We placed a cardboard box on the left where the door opens and his carrier blocking the right side of the doorway. Then Leo realized that he could pull the box out of the way, bump the door and he would be in again. After that, we put his carrier on the left side and the box on the right. Leo can’t pull his carrier out of the way to get to the opening side of the door.

Now if Leo wanted to let himself in, he would have to jump on top of his carrier and bump the door at the same time. Fortunately for us, he hasn’t figured that out.

Bunnies Bearing Gifts – The Details

Bunnies Bearing Gifts

Contest Details – three $10 gift certificates, contest closes at midnight 11/22 11/23* EST.

We will let winners choose which shop they would like to have a gift certificate for –

So how to enter? Beginning now through Friday November 22nd, make a comment here on the blog or sign up for our newsletter or both. Sign up for the newsletter will earn one entry per person, each blog comment will earn an entry. Please only sign up for the newsletter once, but there is no limit on how many times you can comment on the blog. Each comment will earn a separate entry. We will pick out three random winners. Perhaps Leo will be willing to assist us with that.  It is possible that a winner could win more than one certificate if more than one of their entries is randomly picked. We will pick winners and email them on November 23rd 24th* to find out which shop certificate they would like to have.

*Note – Since we had a bit of website downtime on the 21st, we are extending entries through midnight 11/23 EST and will email winners on 11/24.

 

Whats Up With Rabbittude …

I have been MIA here for a while and it has been a combination of things.  The fall allergy season is a tricky one for me and sometimes leaves me drained and down or dealing with sleeplessness due to sinus pressure.  Next year, I need to get blog posts written ahead to make things easier on myself to keep on track.  However, this year was more than just seasonal allergies.  The end of the allergy season coincided with the six month anniversary of losing Tigger and Shadow.  That hit a bit harder than expected, especially so since one of our early friends we met after getting Tigger and Shadow was Jean and her bunny Acorn.  Acorn was also eleven years old and in failing health this past year.  I am sad to say that he too is now gone.  So I will get back to writing some stories soon and include a tribute to Acorn in that.

Leo has been keeping me company in the office on a daily basis and we are growing to know each other better.  He is a close to the vest bunny rabbit, not letting all his likes and dislikes and personality all hang out.  It will be an uncovering of the layers of Leo over time.  One thing though is quite clear, he is a sweetie and that makes it hard to understand how someone else could have given him up.

To keep my hands busy and still some sad thoughts for a time while still showing my love of rabbits, I have been doing a lot of creating with my hoard of bunny beads over this past couple months. Most of those items have been listed in our Etsy Buntique shop if you are looking for something rabbit themed for yourself or another rabbit lover. The showcase here has just a few of the items available.  We have a special going on starting tomorrow through next Monday, free US shipping and reduced shipping prices to locations outside the US.

I will start to write bunny stories again during this next week, now that things are getting back to normal again and I am catching up to schedule again.

Portia Meets Shadow & Tigger

Portia is homeWe brought Portia home on a trial basis to meet Tigger and Shadow to see if three bunnies would get along better than two. The plan was to keep Tigger and Shadow on the living room floor while putting Portia on the kitchen / dining room floor and allowing her a brief time to settle in. Then we were going to arrange some introductions in a neutral area and see if the rabbits might like each other.

We should have realized that as with everything else with Tigger and Shadow, things would not go as planned. They decided to introduce themselves. Shadow managed to squeeze around the gate we had blocking the stairway from the living room to the kitchen and ran down the stairs with Blaine in hot pursuit. Unfortunately for Shadow, he was both very speedy and very friendly.  He raced right up to the x-pen enclosure we had Portia in and stood there with his face right up to the space in the bars. Knowing Shadow, I am sure he was thinking and saying in rabbit speak, “Hi, I’m Shadow. Who are you?” Portia’s response was to race at him full speed and nip his nose through the x-pen bars.

Blaine caught up with Shadow as he yelped and then dived under the dining room table to hide. That is the point I arrived on the scene to find two very agitated males, one hiding under the table and the other yelling, “She bit my boy! She is out of here!” I went under the table after Shadow and scooped him up to get a good look at the injury. He had a small paper cut like slice on his nose that had a couple tiny beads of blood. Next, we called the vet and found out how to clean it and what to watch out for while it was healing.

Then while Blaine comforted Shadow, I made a call to Portia’s foster family to see about making arrangements to take her back to them. They were heading out-of-town on a week-long vacation and asked if we would keep her for that time.  So I made arrangements to be in touch once they were back.  It was our intention to keep the rabbits separated from each other during that time.

However during that week, Tigger was determined to meet this intruder for herself.  Who knows what Shadow might have conveyed in rabbit speak after his meeting.  She wiggled around the barrier and flew down the stairs, this time with me in hot pursuit. However, Tigger was a very different bunny from Shadow. She was always on guard. So when she saw Portia in her x-pen, Tigger kept her distance.  Instead, she was slinking around the perimeter acting very much like a small tiger on the prowl gauging the enemy.  Before either rabbit could decide to make a move, I caught up to Tigger and chased her under the dining room table. Then I caught her and took her back upstairs.

After that for the remaining time we expected to have Portia, we reinforced our barriers to a double gate system.  We had one gate at the top of the stairs and another at the bottom of the stairs so that if Tigger or Shadow got around one, we could still catch them before they could try to get around the other.  Fortunately for us, Portia had absolutely no interest in trying to escape her area.

So, it looked like everything was set and determined. After the foster family returned from vacation in a week, Portia would be going back and looking again for another furever home. During that week of reprieve, Portia took her fate into her own little paws and started to really reach out to Blaine. Dare I call it sucking up big time? In one week she bonded herself to him in every way she could. In doing so she melted his heart, he forgave her biting Shadow and Portia found herself a permanent home. When the foster family came back to town, I called to tell them that we were making the arrangements to adopt Portia.

It was clear though in just the brief rabbit to rabbit interactions though that we were not looking at any likely three-way bonding anytime in the future.  As we came to know Portia a bit more, it became clear she had trust issues and had probably been treated badly by either humans or other animals. If you approached from her rear unawares, she would whip around and rear up, batting her front paws and trying to bite.  Because of this, we recognized that the decision to keep her meant we would need to keep the rabbits completely separate.

By falling in love with all three rabbits and wanting to give each of them the best home we could, we were now entering a really complicated phase.  Tigger and Shadow would have the living room floor of the house.  However, they were still not speaking to each other since the falling apart of their bond when Shadow became so ill with his lengthy inner ear infections.  So they had side by side cages, but separate run times.  Now we had added Portia in to have the kitchen / dining room floor.  In order to keep rabbit order and well-being, we had to continue to have gates at the top and bottom of the stairs to keep Shadow and Tigger from being able to meet up with Portia.

Next week … living with multiple rabbit encampments …

The Perils of Pretty Portia

Close Up of PortiaPortia was a rescue bunny who first came to our attention early in 2003. I was helping out at a rabbit adoption day at a pet store and met a handsome and friendly Chinchilla rabbit named Bentley. Bentley had been found with two other rabbits shut up in an abandoned car. It was fortunate someone came across them soon to rescue them from certain death due to lack of food and water or exposure to extremes of heat or cold.

The three rabbits had some issues as a group so they were separated for adoption.  They were given the names Bentley, Mercedes and Portia as the three bunnies who were found in a car. In Portia’s case the name sounded like the pronunciation of Porsche even though they gave her the spelling for the human name.

After meeting Bentley and hearing his story, I looked up the other two rabbits online to see what they looked like. Mercedes was a beautiful black female while Portia was a Chinchilla like Bentley, but a smaller female. Over a period of about six months, the look Portia had in her picture kept calling me back to see if she had been adopted. During that time we were having a really unsuccessful time trying to reestablish the bond of Tigger and Shadow that had been broken when Shadow became so ill with his inner ear infection.

Looking back now, I am not sure what I was thinking, but at the time I think I read somewhere that sometimes groups of rabbits bond better than two. Out of feeling desperate to try anything with Tigger and Shadow and wanting to meet Portia, we arranged to visit her foster home. Portia was thought to be a year old and she was super cute. If you have never seen a Chinchilla rabbit in person, the fur is like having a living stuffed rabbit. The fur is incredibly plush and your hand sinks in before you feel the rabbit body. Her face was gorgeous with eyes outlined with a black ring and deep black lashes as if she had put on eyeliner and mascara. Her whole underside was the most beautiful snowy white fur.

We interacted with Portia, petting her and talking with the foster parents about what she was like. They told us a number of people had visited to see her and said she seemed to be responding more to us than others. Then we watched her hopping around the living room. Portia had a very different build than Tigger and Shadow. She had a larger bone structure and felt several pounds heavier. She was solid while they were sleek. Portia had a slower hop around style compared to Tigger and Shadow’s high-speed runs. We thought perhaps watching her that she might be a bit more settled than they were, more mellow. We decided to take her home for a try out to see if she would get along with Tigger and Shadow and perhaps help to mend their broken bond.

Next week … Shadow and then Tigger introduce themselves to Portia … what were we thinking?

 

 

Plan Ahead for International Rabbit Day 2012

International Rabbit Day 2012

Until last year, I didn’t know that anyone had designated a day to think about rabbits other than the obvious, Easter, which can be a very bad day for live rabbits who go to homes unprepared for their daily longterm care.  Then someone sent me a link to the website Holiday Insights with information about how the day started and the intent to promote the well-being of rabbits.  It is usually set for the Fourth Saturday in September which would be the 22nd this year.

Here is one suggestion for the day:  “Celebrate this special day with your pet rabbit. Learn a little more about him and how to properly care for his needs. If you don’t have a pet, maybe today is the day to get a pet rabbit! ”  Visit the Holiday Insights page for more information on the meaning and origin of International Rabbit Day.

The Etsy Rabbits team is planning to get the word out that the day exists by creating treasuries (Etsy member curated showcases) during September showcasing rabbit themes, items and the shops of Etsy Rabbits team members.  There are currently over 300 members of the team from countries around the world.  Most have shops on Etsy, but those who have buyer accounts on Etsy are welcome to join too. If you love to buy or create bunny rabbit themed items or items for rabbits, check out the team.  Members of the team love living rabbits and many members have one or more big eared friends at home.  Some members are actively involved with assisting rabbit rescue groups.  I will post some links to treasuries soon as more get going creating them and will be creating some treasuries myself.

On Friday, the first story of how we first met Portia bunny rabbit …

Attack of the Killer Parsley aka Parslay – Cartoon

This is the story of Shadow and parsley. Rabbits are sometimes really weird for no explainable reason that we humans can figure out.  Shadow had a bizarre reaction his whole life to parsley.

When we would wash parsley and first put it down for him and Tigger, Tigger would dig in and eat it with no problem.  Shadow would sniff it and run away and I do mean run away.  If we picked up a piece of the parsley and took it to where he was and put it down in front of him, he would run away again.  He acted as if it was something out to get him.  After awhile, I began to picture it as Attack of the Killer Parslay.

Eventually after the parsley had been down on the floor for a while, Shadow would eventually come and eat it.  It was so weird though that he reacted with the terrified run away reaction every time it was first put down.

Tigger and Portia did not have any parsley problems and Leo doesn’t now.  We have no idea why Shadow was so upset by parsley at first each and every time.

Senior Tigger

This is going to be a bit long, because I am going to share the hardest illness of Tigger’s life to deal with which actually wasn’t the very end. At the very end, it was a gradual slowing down, stiffening up, eyesight fading away, hunger coming and going over a period of months until it was quite clear the end had arrived.

Is Tigger resting or in pain?

Tough call position: Tigger would hen up to nap, but would also hen up if she was in pain. The difference in judging was often the length of time she stayed in this position. More than a few hours with an unwillingness to move when nudged, meant she was in pain.

The vet started talking about Tigger as an elder bunny after turning eight years old. At that point there really wasn’t much other than a slight slowing down and gassy tummy issues occurring more often to show that she was getting up in years.  Most of the time, Tigger was Tigger, sassy and getting into everything and hassling Shadow if he wasn’t paying her enough of what she deemed the right attention.

When she was nine and a half years old, we had a crisis hit the neighborhood, literally when a bolt of lightning zapped all the way down into the ground.  I heard the thunder, saw the bolt of white light, felt the ground shake and everything in the house went off, all at the same time.  Frazzled doesn’t cover the feeling, everything needed checking on all at once … First I made sure the house hadn’t been hit and the bunnies were all right.  Then began the rounds of everything else.  Electricity was off for several hours, when it came back on, I began to realize that we had problems with a lot of systems and equipment.  The phone line was coming and going making calling for assistance hard.  This one taught me to always make sure my cell phone was charged.

Over the next week we had a whole series of repairmen trooping in to fix things.  It was August and extremely hot, so we had to rent a portable air conditioner for a day for the rabbits room until we could get the A/C rigged to just run until a part of the switching system could be replaced.  After an exhausting week, we thought we had things back to normal again.  That is when we noticed that Tigger wasn’t eating and drinking enough.  We tried the usual tummy routine we had for her when she would seem gassy.  We would give her Simethicone, extra water and tummy rubs.  Usually that would have her responding back to normal within 12 hours at the most, but it wasn’t working this time.  We took her in to the vet and didn’t find out anything more than we knew before we went in.  We were told to keep up with the Simethicone and feed her with Oxbow Critical Care as needed.  We also tried wilted greens as suggested.

Over the next week, there was no real change, no improvement.  We went in again and the doctor did another exam and suggested putting Tigger under anesthesia to do a good exam of the teeth.  We knew the anesthesia at her age was risky, but didn’t feel we had a choice.  She had begun grinding her teeth on a regular basis.  It was obvious she was in pain somewhere.  The vet brought her back in fairly quickly, really groggy from the anesthesia and said she had found one tooth that was a little pointy but didn’t know if that was the problem.  We were somewhat surprised she hadn’t just taken care of that while Tigger was under the anesthesia, but had been seeing the vet for years and really trusted her judgment and care, so didn’t push for asking why she hadn’t acted on that.

We were sent home again without much more than the bill for the trip, still told to do Simethicone, Critical Care and had a little bit of pain medicine for her. After another week with no improvement, we were reaching exhaustion trying to care for Tigger ourselves at home making sure she had enough feedings each day, enough water, pain meds and then still care for Shadow too and try to eat, sleep and work ourselves.  Tigger was still not wanting to eat much on her own, was still grinding her teeth in pain and was seeming as tired and unhappy as we were.

We weren’t getting much help when we would check in with the vets office by phone.  I would call and go through everything that was going on and be told someone would call me back.  Hours would pass and when I would call back, I would be greeted with surprise that I was expecting a call, because the chart had been noted Tigger was doing well ??? We went online seeking help from Etherbun.  It was suggested that we really needed to discuss the situation quite openly with the vet about what Tigger’s options and prognosis really were at this point.  Should motility drugs be tried?  Was she at a point where she might not recover?  Was it possible that euthanasia was the compassionate choice if she was in constant unrelieved pain?

We made another appointment with the vet with the intention of discussing and being open to knowing where things stood, however that might be.  It was an awful visit right from the start.  Tigger was in pain and completely freaked out.  After being weighed, she took a flying leap off the scale straight up into the air and landed teetering on my shoulder.  I had a split second vision of what a fall from five feet would do to her.  Fortunately for Tigger, I had early in life emergency training on how to help someone who is in danger of falling to the floor, by putting myself between them and the floor while doing a controlled fall myself.  I immediately fell forward onto my stomach across the exam table.  That shifted Tigger onto my back, surprised her and in the moment of surprise the vet tech was able to safely grab her.

The exam by the vet showed nothing any different from previous weeks and when we tried to discuss all our options, medications or whether this might be the end, the vet completely shut down the discussion and said she would never consider euthanasia for any animal she felt still had life in them.  Then she left the room.  I have never felt more tired or frustrated.  We didn’t want to lose Tigger, but we didn’t want to have her grinding her teeth in pain hour after hour, day after day either.  That was simply no way to live.  We left the office with basically the same thing we had from the previous two visits, another bill and instructions to keep doing what we were doing.

We reached out again on Etherbun and were put in touch with a rabbit rescuer who had a great deal of experience dealing with rabbits in stasis.  He was wonderful.  He told us to get to another vet ASAP, to get as much water into Tigger as we could and what pain and motility medicines to call up and insist the current vet provide us with until we could get a second opinion.  The increased water and pain medicine helped Tigger be a bit more comfortable.  The motility drug, we had to stop after two doses, Tigger developed seizure like head movements which was one of the serious side effects noted to watch out for.  We had an appointment set for a new vet in a just a couple of days.

With the new vet, we were dismayed that the record transfer we had requested from the other vet had not taken place as we had been assured it had by the other vet’s office staff.  We went over the whole history and everything that had been tried and everything Tigger had gone through.  The vet was very patient and took her time with a thorough exam.  We told the vet we didn’t know what to do, it was obvious Tigger was in constant pain and although we didn’t want to lose her, we could not continue to put her through nothing but pain either.  The vet gave us the option to try having an exam done under anesthesia to see if there was a tooth issue that needed to be addressed.  She warned us that since Tigger was elderly and had been under anesthesia just a little over a week before, there was a much greater risk that she would not wake up.  We did not see any choice but to try.

Thankfully, the vet filed down the sharp tooth the previous vet had noted and Tigger did awake easily from the anesthesia.  She started to recover after that and was back to herself again soon.  I have never written about this before, because it was just such a painful experience to go through for all of us.  I am not sure if the stress of the lightning strike played a part in Tigger’s illness or if all the lengthy repairs after the strike just kept us from noticing a problem sooner.  I have no idea why after years with the one vet, the communication took so many seemingly wrong turns.  I am writing about the experience now so that hopefully others won’t have to go through the same thing.  Even if you have a vet you have loved who has been great in the past, if it suddenly seems that you aren’t being heard or helped, seek a second opinion. Your reward for acting to find another option might then be the same as ours, more time to enjoy with your rabbit.  We were blessed with another year and half with Tigger after she recovered.

This weekend, a gallery of Tigger photos and next week Shadow’s stories begin …

Spay Time for Tigger

Tigger restingWhen Tigger got to be six months of age and Shadow was turning four months, it was time to take them in to be fixed.  There will be a tale to tell with Shadow about that, but with Tigger, we thought it was going to be a straight forward spay.  We should have known better.  The day the surgery was scheduled, we were gathering everything together when something spooked Tigger.  She was still in her cage, but she had developed a habit of gnawing on her cage bars.  She had been doing that when she took fright and must have jumped backward while her teeth were still around the bars.  It was pretty clear immediately that something was really wrong.  She was grinding her teeth in obvious pain.

When we got to the vet, we explained that she needed to be examined for the mouth injury before anything was decided or done with the spay.  They told us they would call us, so we left to await what they would find.  That was a mistake.  We should have stayed and made sure the injury was examined and we were consulted.  Instead, we got the phone call that she had cut the inside of her mouth on the top and her teeth were loose and the spay was completed, so they would call us when she was ready for pick up.

We were really upset that the surgery had proceeded with such a serious mouth injury and questioned why that had been done without consulting us first.  Tigger was not a good eater and we were terrified what it was going to be like trying to help her recover from both the spay surgery and a serious mouth injury at the same time.  We were really scared and thought this just might be too much and might cost Tigger her life.  The vet just said he felt it was in her long-term best interest and wanted to get it out-of-the-way.  When I looked at the spay incision with the very obvious stitches, I asked what was to prevent her from trying to chew them out.  The vet said that rabbits didn’t do that, only rats did.  I doubted he was right about that, but didn’t know what else to say at that time.

We were told to take her home and keep her in her cage for ten days, then the stitches would come out.  The removal day was set for the eleventh day since the tenth fell on a Sunday.  So we took Tigger home knowing we had a nursing challenge ahead.  Fortunately I was working at home at the time and could keep a close eye on her.  I broke up her pellets really tiny and put a few in a bowl and moistened them just a bit.  She was not interested in her food that night and had the most awful dragging hop to pull herself from the front of the cage to the back.  She wanted to be as far from us as possible.

A few hours later, I looked in and saw her lapping something off the floor and realized she was drinking her own urine.  That is when I realized that the mouth injury was probably not allowing her to drink from her bottle.  I immediately got a small bowl we had that could attach to the side of the cage and filled it with water.  She was so thirsty.  I felt terrible not realizing sooner that maybe Tigger would not be able to drink from the water bottle.

The next morning, I was relieved to see that Tigger was munching on some hay.  That gave me hope that she would pull through.  Still, it was really rough, I was having to check on her every few hours around the clock to make sure she was eating and drinking enough.  We had put pellets in a couple small bowls around the cage as well as water bowls front and back since she was so obviously in pain trying to hop around.  The vet hadn’t given us anything for pain.  Looking back with what we know now, we should have insisted on being given something for pain for her since she was dealing with two recoveries at the same time.

Tigger was obviously experiencing strong hormonal changes too.  She would get really grumpy, then angry and in spite of the mouth injury would try to throw things. Other times, I would come in and find her hunched up as small as she could get. When I would put my hand on her head, her ears would be so cold.  I would get a towel and wrap it around her and just stay with her petting her head until she warmed up again.

About day six, she was getting really anxious about being in her cage all the time. I called the vet and asked if it would be okay to let her out if we did it in a hallway that had nothing in it.  We got the okay and let Tigger in the blocked off hallway.  We had all the room doors closed and a huge piece of cardboard four feet tall blocking the opening, so she couldn’t even see the other room.  We should have known not to trust Tigger.  She hopped up to the cardboard and leaped straight up in the air about three feet as if she was trying to see over the top.  Fortunately, the stitches and incision appeared fine and Miss Tigger was put back in her cage with no reprieves for the rest of the ten days.

Or so we thought, day nine was a Saturday morning.  Tigger was scheduled to have her stitches out on Monday, but she decided that was too long.  We woke up Saturday morning to find her chewing them out herself.  So much for the vet thinking that only rats did that.  It would probably have happened sooner if she hadn’t injured her mouth. Off we headed to the vet.  Fortunately, the stitches were ready to come out and Tigger had only scratched her skin a bit with biting at them.  We were given an antibiotic ointment to put on the incision and scratches to aid the healing.

After that everything did finally proceed without more trouble with the spay incision.  Tigger did need to have her teeth trimmed by the vet for a few months, but was fortunate that when they fully healed, there was no malocclusion and she was able to keep them worn down herself with normal chewing.  She no longer needed the tooth trims.  However, Tigger never forgot the spay.  She absolutely hated to have anyone come anywhere near touching her tummy.  If you put your hand anywhere near her tummy, she would be across the room in the blink of an eye.

Tomorrow senior Tigger …

Boarding a Tigger

Food bag for a TiggerEarly on during the second month we had Tigger, we had to board her for a weekend. We had an out-of-town committment and started looking into options of caring for her while we were gone.  We didn’t know anyone else who knew how to care for rabbits and when we checked with the vet, although they knew people who did rabbit sitting, they said they couldn’t recommend them.  So we checked into having her boarded by the vet.

It was really hard planning to leave her, she was a little less than four months old and still baby tiny at about three to three and half pounds.  We packed up a bag for her with her pellets and hay.  We brought along one of her small litter boxes with her litter and brought some toys she liked.  We also brought along a small cardboard box with a hole cut in the side.  I had written out a paper that started out, “Hi, my name is Tigger … with what she liked, didn’t like and what really freaked her out.   Never let it be said that Princess Tigger traveled lightly.  We probably had about five to ten pounds of stuff that came along with her.  I even had all her food packed in a cute Tigger bag.

We arranged everything in the kennel cage for her and put her in.  We tried to bring everything we could that would make her feel that she was surrounded with her own things and had all her usual foods.  It was easier that she wasn’t on fresh greens at that point yet.  Then we left for the weekend and it was really hard wondering how she was doing.  She was all alone back in an environment like the pet shop again with lots of other animal sounds nearby.

On Monday when we went to pick her up, as the kennel manager was leading us back to where she was being kept, he told us she had spent the whole weekend hiding in the cardboard box and had only come out briefly at times to eat, drink and use the litter box.  He said they had barely seen her.  As we approached the corner of the aisle her cage was in, we weren’t expecting to see Tigger after what we had been told.  Instead, we saw her right away.  She was in the corner of the cage closest to the aisle and was sitting up on her hind legs stretched out to her full height.  It was pretty clear she had heard and recognized our voices and was begging for us to take her home.

Blaine says it is okay to say that the sight completely melted his heart and turned him into a blubbering idiot.  I have to take his word on that.  All I know is that he bundled her into her carrier and took off with her while I was still gathering things up and then settling the bill.  One minute they were there and the next, I was on my own.  When I got out to the car, Blaine said we were never going to leave her all alone anywhere again and we didn’t.  It made us realize that Tigger was not going to be a good single bunny.  She was simply too unhappy and scared being left on her own.  We realized that we needed to find her a rabbit buddy.  Next week, I will start to tell the tales of how that came to be Shadow.

The spay story together with this ran too long, so I will share that tale on its own tomorrow …

Princess Lady Bunny

Little Lady bunny Tigger with paws just so.Tigger had a way of positioning herself that was just so very proper that we called her the little lady bunny.  She would always have her little paws lined up side by side completely even and balanced.  It always reminded me of old movies or TV shows with the ladies in hats and gloves who would have both hands side by side holding their purses so very properly.

We called her Princess because she decidedly had a sense of what was due to HRH Princess Tigger bunny rabbit.  When she would enter a room, she would pause and thump.  It became the Tigger has entered the room announcement, pay attention.  She also thumped when she was mad.  If you offended the royal rabbit by picking her up and messing with her for medicine or clean ups or feedings, as soon as you put her back down there was a thump or two or more of outrage depending on how big she deemed the offense. If she became really frightened, she would run into the sheet tunnel we had for the rabbits or under the guest bed and would become a serial thumper.  After she calmed down, she would have that over the shoulder little nose in the air, pouty look.  Or sometimes she would hop away while flicking the back feet showing herself to be offended.

Now Tigger was very catlike in being quite independent, but when Princess Tigger wanted attention, you were supposed to be ready, willing and able to pay her the attention she deemed fitting.  I made the mistake once of sitting on the floor while talking on the phone and forgetting all about her.  That is until she snuck up behind me and gave me a pinching nip on my behind and took off running away.  I had been warned I was behaving offensively.  I squealed into the phone as she nipped me and had to apologize and explain.  Then I stood up to finish the call and went to attempt to soothe Princess Tigger’s outraged feelings of being ignored.

Her sneak up and nip wasn’t limited to my one phone experience.  If she didn’t feel Shadow was paying her enough of the right attention, she would sneak up behind him and give him a nip and take off running.  It was a good thing she was quite a bit faster than he was.  They would run and tire themselves out and then forget why they had been running and go back to being as they were again.

HRH Princess Tigger just absolutely delighted in going right into the middle of the room in front of the fireplace to eat her soft serve cecal snack or give herself a head to toe bunny bath. Why wouldn’t everyone want to watch her every bunny move?  Ah, well, she knew she was cute and she knew she was special.  She worked it for all a bunny could to get the attention she wanted when she wanted it.  It wasn’t at all hard to mentally picture a sparkly tiara on that little bunny head.

Tomorrow boarding a Tigger & spay time …