The Model Bunny Rabbit

Tigger posing for the camera
You worked it baby girl!

From early on when the camera would come out, Tigger would pose.  This series of photos was all taken at one time within just a few minutes.  Tigger seemed to instinctively know to show off all sides of herself to the camera.  We really believe she knew she was beautiful. 

She had a way of moving that was dainty, delicate, precise and smooth.  Unless she was freaked by something, she was all very coordinated ballet like moves.  She may not have liked being picked up, but she loved attention.  If I brought out a camera and was taking pictures of Shadow and had no idea where Tigger was, usually within just a few minutes she would be hoping in and taking over the photo shoot.

Besides her desire to pose, we called Tigger our model bunny because of her finicky eating habits.  She was always slender, bordering on anorexic thinness and quite fussy about her food.  We always joked she was on the model diet, avoiding eating whenever possible, but grabbing yummy treats from time to time.  Tigger would sniff meal offerings and sometimes hop away.  We would put salad greens on a plastic picnic plate and she would sometimes take the plate and toss the salad.  Other times she would overturn pellet or hay bowls if they weren’t to her taste.  There was nothing physically wrong with her that the vet could find, she was just a really picky eater.   

One time when we had Tigger, Shadow and Portia, we received new pellets and hay from our regular company and the taste obviously differed significantly from past seasons.  All three bunnies turned their noses up at the new food.  We got some of the old season and mingled it in with the new and within a couple of days Shadow and Portia were eating it.  Tigger held out for two weeks refusing to touch the new.  We were feeding her lots of greens to make sure she was eating enough and checking her weight too. 

We spent a lot of time during the first five years of Tigger’s life following her around begging her to eat.  Then she suddenly started to eat as if she was making up for all the years of lost time.  We said that it was obvious our model bunny had retired and now intended to enjoy life to the full. 

We had never thought we would see our Tigger chubby.  The last six years of her life we had to watch that she didn’t eat too much fattening food.  We had to protect Shadow so that she didn’t hassle or attack him trying to steal his treats or push him away from food.  She would run dancing around our feet as we carried food and dive at the plates of greens as soon as they were put down acting like a starving rabbit.  Sometimes she would move to stand on the plate hovering above the food making it hard for Shadow to get his share.  She became chubby at times and we would have to put her on a more restricted diet to get her weight back down again.  

Next post on Friday, the Kitty Bunny …