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9:22 a.m. - 2002-12-06
Rabbit Plea
Miss Bunny and Loki were begging at my knee a few minutes ago, the crazed begging of rabbits who haven�t eaten for over half an hour. Miss Bunny stands on her hind legs, her paws on my knee. She sways back and forth, smacking her lips and making snuffing noises. Loki is more energetic. He�s also on his hind legs and swaying, but he�s bobbing his head up and down and making strange little moans. They look for all the world like a pair of demented penguins.

It really got to me, and I realized I had to do something I normally abhor. I�m going to make a shameless, though hopefully not totally obnoxious, plea for charity. But first I�m going to tell you the story of Loki and Miss Bunny.

I used to work at a pottery studio as a designer and studio manager. The owner was kind of a jerk (read: total asshole) and so whenever anything went wrong after hours I�d get called, because I was so much easier for the staff to deal with. One night about 11:30 when I was drifting off to sleep the phone rang. I decided to let the answering machine pick up since it was probably just a dead kiln.

It was our office manager Kevin. Kevin was a sweetie, but he was also a recovering coke addict who kept falling off the wagon, despite many treatment programs. He had been clean for a few months, but from his speech on the answering machine I could tell that was suddenly over. After all, he was talking about�.a rabbit?!!

�I got this rabbit!� he was blithering. �I found it in the road! I got the asbestos gloves from the kiln, and I picked it up! It�s ok, but it�s in the bathroom! Don�t open the door! It�s in there! DON�T OPEN THE DOOR!!�

�God, Kevin�s on drugs again� I thought, and rolled over.

The next morning I went to the studio at 7 a.m. I ate some breakfast and went to the bathroom. The door was closed, although I knew no one else was there. �Strange!� I thought, having completely forgotten Kevin�s call. I opened the door and�.

There was a rabbit. A little, skinny, black and white Dutch miniature rabbit, to be exact.

His underside was caked with feces, and he was so wild it was hard to pick him up. Whoever had had him before me had undoubtedly left him to rot in a tiny cage before throwing him out in the street. He was filthy, scared and completely unsocialised.

Yeah, you know me. I fell in love.

It took months, and he drove me to the point of tears quite a number of times. Named after the Norse God of chaos and disorder, Loki turned out to be the Bart Simpson of rabbits. Let�s just say he was �behaviourally challenged� (ever had a bunny run up behind you and repeatedly bite your butt when you�re sitting on the floor? Damn that hurts!) but he eventually calmed down and became the love bunny he is now. Really, I wish I had a Gold membership right now so I could post pictures of him. You�d all gush and get ill from the overwhelmingly sickening cuteness.

It really helped that our vet referred us to the local chapter of the House Rabbit Society (HRS), an organization that tries to educate the public about domestic rabbit care and also does rescue and foster work. A very nice woman named Gloria helped me immensely. Thank you, Gloria!

After about a year we decided that, as much as I loved him, he probably could use a friend of his own species, and so I called the HRS to see who they were fostering. After a pretty extensive interview process they referred me to a woman named Kim, who was fostering 22 rabbits and had a number of others as permanent residents. The woman was a saint! And even nuttier than I am!

When we got to her house there were rabbits everywhere. There were eleven cages in the kitchen alone! Miss Bunny was loose on the kitchen floor. I had seen her photo on the HRS website and had asked about her, but had been told she had behaviour problems, that she had been abused and dumped and was very scared of people. She had been named Mirage because the wildlife people who tried to catch her said she was there one minute and gone the next. It took a number of tries with a Hav-A-Heart trap, and when they finally caught her she weighed four pounds and had sores all over her body and patches of fur missing. (For reference she now weighs seven. And the fur grew back.) She had been in foster care for eight months because she was so afraid of people and they couldn�t match her up with someone who was willing to work with her.

Weirdly though, she came right up to Bruce and I and smelled our shoes. Kim was floored. �She usually runs and hides! Do you want to try and hold her?�

I sat on the floor, and Kim handed me Miss Bunny. She didn�t tense up, but immediately snuggled her head under my chin. And then I realized I was getting the ultimate bunny compliment � she was grooming my neck.

You have to understand a little about rabbit language and politics. Rabbits have a very complicated social structure and there are all sorts of ways they communicate. If you understand their behaviours you can really understand their thoughts and emotions.

I actually pride myself on being able to speak three languages fluently: English, Cat, and the most difficult of all, Rabbit.

Anyway, when rabbits groom each other they are not just grooming. It�s a show of submission and often a statement of trust. Kind of like saying �I acknowledge you as my leader and besides, I really like you a lot.�

So for the shy Miss Bunny to be grooming me on our first meeting was quite a statement. Kim grabbed my hand and said �I�ve never seen her bond with anyone like this. Will you take her home?� Of course, we did the requisite introduction to Loki, during which he was an outrageously aggressive little jerk, but Kim said that was normal and their relationship actually looked quite promising to her. Yeah, again, the complicated rabbit language. Miss Bunny came home with us that day.

So the story has a happy ending. They are both sacked out in the studio right now, laying against each other and looking like a pair of stuffed animals. They have bonded so thoroughly that we refer to them as the Velcro Rabbits. They are always within a few feet of each other, partners in crime and cardboard box destruction. Miss Bunny is still shy with strangers but has gotten to the point that she will actually sniff hands if she likes someone. Loki has turned into a regular party animal. He�s so tame we routinely pass him around at parties and I even trust him with small children, something I never would have done when we first got him.

So now to my plea. Yes, this story has a happy ending, but many rabbit stories do not. In fact, the National House Rabbit Society estimates that 90% of the rabbits bought at Easter are dumped or taken to shelters. 90% folks! Loki and Mirage were two of those bunnies. The only unusual thing about them is that they got rescued. Most rabbits don�t.

So here it is, the favour I�m going to ask you. I�m not real fond of Amazon.com, but they do have an agreement with the HRS to give a donation of 5% of every purchase that people make through a link on the HRS website. If you are going to shop anyway at Amazon during the holidays, or hell! Anytime! could you please do it through the HRS link? If you go to: (and here I am going to try to make a link which has never worked before but here we go)�.. www.rabbit.org and then go to the lower part of the page where it says: �Read any good books lately?� and click on �Amazon� it will take you to the link.

I would really love it if people would do this, and it would help HRS which is just such a great organization. If it hadn�t been for them I would have thrown Loki out the window after about my second day with him, and Miss Bunny would be dead in a wildlife sanctuary. Not to mention all the medical info they provide which has helped me get through her Pasteurella infection.

Warning though: the website is full of disgustingly cute rabbits. Really. It�ll make you nauseous. Brace yourself!

I know that on the scale of all the rotten things that are happening in the world, helping rabbits might seem just a tad....insignificant. But if you're going to order from Amazon anyway, and you don't already have a charity you link through, it's a little thing to do. And it helps HRS immensely.

And if Loki and Miss Bunny weren�t so busy snoring right now, I know they would thank you from the bottom of their naughty little hearts. So (and now I�m putting on my blue Tammy Faye Baker eye makeup and my platinum beehive wig, and I�m clutching my hands to my bosom and wringing them in a truly heartfelt way) if mah two lil� bunnies have touched yor heart in any way, please, go buy a hell of a lotta books and do it through the HRS link!!


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