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!

Live, from New York!

Well it took a few months longer than I anticipated, but Walter and I are finally moved into our new apartment in New York City.  So far, Walter seems to be enjoying our new home, taking time to explore, finding his new favorite nap spot (underneath a console table), and taking advantage of his newfound freedom.

For the past few months, Walter has been locked up in a small playpen in my brother’s basement, which meant that he rarely got a chance to stretch his legs and hardly ever had any visitors. I felt badly about this arrangement, but my brother was giving us a free place to live until we found a permanent home, and I wasn’t going to let my rabbit be my source of complaint.

As a result of living in a suburb of New York, carless for the last month, Walter has not been to the veterinarian for many months. His nails are extremely long (I found the nail scissors, but of course he won’t let me trim them myself!) and he’s started showing signs of e. cuniculi again.  Argh!

I’ve noticed he’s been drinking excessive amounts of water (this could be due to the summer heat, though) and shaking his head a lot (this could be due to two flies who also live in my home).  I am hoping to get him to the vet next week; there is one just a few blocks from my apartment.

In the meantime, here’s five seconds of Walter jumping in celebration of the new living room rug:

  

(This is for you, Olivia, since you don’t believe he ever plays!)

Bunny Flop

The cutest thing my rabbit (any rabbit!) does is the “bunny flop.” Walter rarely does it, so I doubt I’ll ever catch it on camera, but it’s adorable. Basically, the rabbit starts sitting upright and then suddenly flops down on his side, curls into a small semi-circle, and then stretches back out in total relax-mode.

It always catches me by surprise, because one minute, Walter is sitting there looking at me, and the next minute, he’s nestled into a perfect napping position. It’s a sign of true rabbit comfort, I’ve read, since it puts the rabbit in a position in which he can’t be on high-alert for danger. His stomach is exposed, which is rare, and unless something is going on around him, his eyes are small slits while he sleeps.

Walter did the bunny flop twice this weekend. Once on Saturday evening after my mom and I got home from our adventures in DC. I was lying on the living room floor, petting Walter, when out of nowhere – FLOP! – right onto me. The next instance was on Sunday, when Walter was locked in his cage for a time out. He was sitting awkwardly halfway in his wooden cave when he suddenly flopped onto his side, ready for a good nap.

Hands down, it is my favorite rabbit movement (closely followed by the process of Walter washing his face and ears). I found a couple videos on You Tube of someone else’s rabbit doing the Bunny Flop, in case you aren’t sure what I’m talking about:

Now, in this video, picture me as that cat, because this is basically what happened with me and Walter on Saturday night:

Awww!

Caught on Camera!

So, this video is perhaps not the most riveting depiction of Walter's antics around the house, but I managed to catch the rabbit on camera (a difficult feat, trust me!) long enough to show off some of his racing speed.  This was taken one morning last weekend after Walter woke me up by prancing back and forth in his cage. Clearly, he wanted to get out and stretch his legs:

With enough camera-stalking practice, I'll be able to catch some of Walter's more entertaining jumps and binkies around the house.