Sugar Addict

Walter and I have a new routine: dessert time. I didn’t used to give him treats that often. Mostly because I never remembered to buy things like blueberries or bananas, but the other day I bought a bag of baby carrots for myself and figured I would share them with Walter.

When Walt was younger, I would give him only teeny tiny tastes of treats. I didn’t want them to mess up his digestion and I didn’t want it to cause poor eating habits or unnecessary weight gain. Now that he’s passed his one-and-a-half year birthday, I’ve decided he can handle some more sweets. This has led to Walter becoming crazy about carrots.

Every evening, I notice Walter will sit and stare at my closed refrigerator. If I open it, he starts sniffing the vegetable drawer like a madman. By this point, he’s already been fed his kale or parsley or whatever veggies make up his dinner. Now he’s just searching for a snack. So, because it makes him happy and because it distracts him from chewing on my walls for maybe three minutes, I oblige.

As soon as Walter sinks his teeth into the baby carrot, he darts off with it like I might change my mind and take it back. If I hang onto the carrot to try and encourage Walter to eat it from my hand, we end up playing carrot tug-of-war, with Walter yanking the carrot with his teeth so hard that bits of the carrot go flying everywhere.

Sometimes I try to get Walter to chase the carrot. I’ll hold it and move it around a little bit, assuming he’ll hop after it, but he gets really easily confused about where the carrot has gone. I thought his eyesight or sense of smell or something would aid him in this game a little better, but he’s absolutely terrible at following the carrot as I wave it around.

After his carrot treat, he’s noticeably more pleasant. He’ll show off some of his funny jumps, run around the room, or patiently let me lift him on my lap for some snuggles. Or maybe he’s just experiencing a sugar crash and doesn’t have the energy to fight my attempts to hang out. At any rate, here’s a ten second video of Walter enjoying his carrot noms. I know all these videos have been really short, but it is really hard trying to capture a rabbit on camera – he moves too fast for me!