Snorty Porty

Miss Portia: I'm listening to you ...

To carry on today with the uniqueness of rabbit personalities, I wanted to share something on Portia.  Portia was a gorgeous gray Chinchilla rabbit we got from a rescue group.  She had an unknown heart defect and left us too soon a few years ago.  I miss the conversations we would have together.  Unlike any other bunny I have known, she was talkative.

We noticed right away that Portia snorted a lot. On her first check up, we asked the vet to examine her for any health problems that would create a snorty bunny. When the vet found no nasal obstructions or breathing problems, she said that it was her opinion this was one of Portia’s personality quirks, a means of communicating. Snorty became one of her nicknames.

For the three years that Portia was with us, we would regularly have conversations. In talking to Portia, when we would finish what we had to say, she would snort a response. We found we could have whole back and forth discussions with her little snorted responses inserted into our pauses in speech.

There were of course other huffy snorts followed by Portia turning her back or hopping away when we had offended her bunny sensibilities. There were also the muffled crying snorts we would get when we had to hold her to be cleaned up or medicated.

Portia was always a very vocal bunny. Only death quieted her sweet bunny voice.