Tigger is a very pawsitive bunny. She punctuates with her paws. She arrives in a room, thump. She arrives on a floor of the house, thump. She is about to hop underneath the dust ruffle on the guest bed, thump. She isn’t happy to be picked up. So, when you put her down, thump. You scared her with that noise / movement / whatever … thump.
The pathway of her life echoes with all the little thumps along the way. You can tell where Tigger is on and off throughout the day as she announces herself on her journeys around the house with thumps.
Tigger is a very bossy bunny. I had always read that bunnies use thumps as danger signals to other bunnies. That has always made me wonder if her little thumps really are a danger signal to the other bunnies in the house, Shadow and for a while Portia. Is it her way of playing tough bunny and saying, “You better stay out of my way!” Or is it the way of HRH Princess bunny to announce herself as she enters, “You better pay attention HRH Tigger is in the room!” or “How dare you pick up HRH Tigger.”
There was one really bad thumping occasion. We have a lot of storms here that cause power surges and everything electrical surges off and then on again. One of those times, the security system for the house was set off by the surge which then fried the electronics in the on position. There was an awesome thunderstorm with lightning going on outside, the security alarm was going off inside and Tigger took off under the guest bed and was thumping off the bunny alarm. For a full half hour the storm raged, the alarm blared and Tigger thumped while I was trying over the phone to hear enough of what the security company was saying to be able to find out how to shut the system down until it could be fixed.
This evening, all is quiet. The bunnies have been running around all day and are now settled in and bedded down for the night. So will it be a quiet night? It depends. If something in her cage isn’t to her liking, Tigger has another way of thumping at night for emphasis. She picks up a corner of her litter box with her teeth and drops it, repeatedly.
So at night if she isn’t happy, her thumps become whumps. You can hear them up a flight of stairs through closed doors. So just for you Tigger baby, how about a variation of the Hokey-Pokey called the Thumpy-Bunny …
You put your right paw in,
You put your right paw out;
You put your right paw in,
And you thump it all about.
You do the Thumpy-Bunny,
And you hop yourself around.
That’s what it’s all about!
Continue on for more verses switching out right paw with left paw, right side, left side, backside, and whole self.
Good night sweet thumpy bunny, a quiet night pretty please …
