Birthday Bunny

Today’s a very important day: it’s Walter’s birthday! My little bunny turns a year old today; he’s definitely a grown up rabbit now.  We’re celebrating with an extra-large helping of greens and a few nibbles of carrots.  I’m not sure if he’s being an attention-hog because he knows it’s his birthday today, or if that’s just his general narcissistic nature.

It’s been an adventure with Walter.  I haven’t had him for quite a full year yet, but it certainly feels like it.  We’ve gone through a lot together: I had to learn how to care for and train a stubborn bunny, and he had to learn how to trust his new human companion.  I’m amazed at how much Walter has changed, especially in the last few months.

He’s gone from a wall-eating, floor-scratching, couch-pooping maniac to a snuggle-loving, binky-jumping, fort-napping house rabbit, who only occasionally eats the walls or scratches the floor.  He went from being allowed only highly-supervised out-of-cage time to being given complete apartment freedom while I’m away at work all day.  It seems like yesterday when I relished a two-second forehead scratch before Walter would run away. Now I’m begging Walter to get off my lap long enough for me to make dinner.

I’m proud of my little wascally wabbit, and look forward to what this next year brings our way! (Maybe another wascally wabbit?  We’ll see... that decision is on hold for now).

Happy birthday, Walter!

Bunny Bar Mitzvah

Walter’s reluctant co-owner is my boyfriend, Paul, with whom Walter and I both live. Despite Paul’s hesitation to fully embrace rabbit-ownership, he still refers to himself as Walter’s “dad.” And, like any split-religion family, claims half-ownership of Walter’s religious orientation. My boyfriend is a self-proclaimed “quasi-Jew,” which means that he’s not religious by any means, but was raised amongst the Jewish culture. This means that Walter is half-Jewish. I mean, he does eat Kosher, after all.

In Judaism, a celebration is thrown in honor of a person’s thirteenth birthday. For males, this is called a bar mitzvah and, according to tradition, is the moment when a boy officially becomes a man. In the rabbit world, from all I’ve read, this moment can be equated to the day a rabbit reaches its seventh month of life.

Today is Walter’s bar mitzvah. He turned seven months old today and earns the title of “rabbit” instead of “bunny,” though I told him he’d always be a bunny to me. In celebration of this occasion, I bought Walter two new toys: a willow ball and a timothy lounger:

The ball was intended to entertain him by rolling on the floor and making fun noises. Instead, he’s already chewed it apart and made a giant mess of willow sticks on our carpet. Alternatively, the timothy lounger was meant for being chewed, and Walter cautiously puts his front legs in the lounger while taking a few chomps, but is a little tentative about committing to full-on lounging inside the toy. At any rate, I consider a toy to be successful for Walter if he plays with it for three consecutive days. He has some serious toy-related ADD.

Part of me feels like something magical should happen when a bunny reaches his bar mitzvah: he miraculously stops chewing wires, digging our hardwood floor, and going to the bathroom on the couch. But as I type this, I’m watching him hop around the apartment, eyeing the baseboards for an afternoon snack. I just heard him scratching the floors underneath the couch. I guess it takes more than a bar mitzvah to make a perfectly-behaved rabbit.

Happy seven-month birthday, Walter. And, of course, Mazel Tov.