Circling

Last night, Walter did something new.  He started circling Paul.  Paul was standing in the middle of the living room and Walter hopped over to Paul’s feet and slowly started hopping around them.  When Paul moved, Walter stopped and waited until Paul stood still again.  At this point, the bunny continued his rotations around Paul’s feet.

Paul gave the rabbit a few rubs and went back to his work on the computer.  Walter followed, waiting for my boyfriend to notice him.  When Paul got back up, Walter began his circling all over again.

Clip Art depicts what happened last night.

Circling, in unaltered rabbits, is a sign of sexual arousal.  Fortunately for Paul, we had Walter neutered in the beginning of the summer so it’s unlikely that Walter was trying to court my boyfriend.  In cases of altered rabbits, circling is simply a way for rabbits to get someone’s attention and signal an interest in playing.

This is the first time I’ve seen Walter actively try to engage us (especially Paul!) in playtime.  Usually, he’s content to binky around the apartment by himself, but it was certainly refreshing and entertaining to see him trying to solicit some attention from someone, even if it wasn’t me.  (No, I’m not jealous or anything…)

Does your rabbit circle?  How does your rabbit try to get your attention for playtime?

I've Gone to Carolina in My Mind..

Walter and I hit the road for North Carolina this weekend.  After I made him spend a total of eleven hours in the car, the rabbit did not care to be my friend for the majority of the weekend and he spent a lot of time sulking behind the bed in the hotel room.

This was my first time staying at a hotel with Walter, and it was not an experience I’d like to relive anytime soon.  For starters, Walter is an incredibly curious rabbit and will find his way behind every piece of furniture available to him.  At home, this isn’t a problem since everything has been rabbit-proofed.  In a hotel room, this leads to disaster.  Walter made his way behind the nightstand, which housed the power cords to a lamp and an alarm clock, the cord for the cable, and one other wire whose purpose I could not identify.

This meant that Walter had to be locked in the bathroom for most of the weekend, to avoid having my parents and I spend hours chasing him around the hotel room.  This displeased the rabbit, who punished us by trying to chew the waterline for the toilet and then refusing to go to the bathroom in his litter box all weekend.  He further showed his disgruntlement by snubbing me and any food I offered him.  But if food or forehead scratches were offered by my mother, he welcomed it.  Such a bratty bunny.

Thankfully, Walter got over it quickly when we finally got home on Sunday and we’re friends again.

During my drive down to North Carolina, the rabbit’s veterinarian called me with the results from Walter’s blood tests.  Most of the results were fine.  He tested lower than average in some areas, but the veterinarian cautioned me against worrying about these results just yet.  One really positive note is that Walter did not test positive for Pasteurella, which almost all bunnies have.  It’s amazing that he doesn’t have this bacterium.  On the downside, the veterinarian said that the rabbit tested “mildly positive” for E. Cuniculi.  This either means he had the infection in the past, or he is about to develop the infection further.

As a result, I have to be on high alert for Walter.  I’ve been instructed to watch for “absolutely anything abnormal,” which is stressful for me, since I think Walter’s a pretty abnormal animal already.  One of the key things to watch for is Walter’s water intake, to see if he’s drinking too much.  This is hard to do, since he uses a bowl and I can never tell if he’s consumed the water or if it’s just spilled out over the course of the day.  I will need to bring Walter back to the animal hospital in about a month to retest him for E. Cuniculi, or sooner if he starts behaving more abnormally than usual.

Rabbit Personalities

One of the most helpful articles I read while planning to become a new rabbit owner was Your First House Rabbit: What to Expect by Dana Krempels, Ph.D. It’s a short article, but it really hammers home what the world must feel like from a bunny’s perspective. One of the lines that always stood out the most to me is:

"Probably the single most frequent question we get about rabbits as companions is, 'Is a rabbit more like a cat or a dog?' The answer: neither. Dogs and cats have been bred for centuries to not be afraid of humans. Rabbits have been bred primarily for meat, fur and physical characteristics. That means that when you adopt a bunny, you adopt a lovely, domestic animal with the heart and spirit of a wild animal."

Having originally gotten into the idea of rabbit ownership based on the misconception that a rabbit had a similar personality to a dog, this was disappointing to read. I somehow translated the notion that rabbits can be social, like dogs, to an idealistic opinion that rabbits love nothing more than to cuddle up with you or fetch your favorite pair of slippers.

It is true that parts of Walter’s personality remind me of dogs I’ve had in the past. Walter is excited when I come over to greet him. He’ll do almost anything for a special treat (usually a sprig of basil or mint). Sometimes he’s content to lie on the floor and receive pets. And when I’m sad or sick, sometimes I think he notices and cares.

But there are also many of Walter’s personality traits that are brand new to me in a pet. Walter holds grudges. If he thinks he’s been treated unfairly (kept in the cage too long, banned from the bathroom, etc.), he sulks. He won’t be friendly for hours. He’s disobedient. Walter never comes when he’s called. Walter is stubborn and willful. If he has his mind set on accomplishing something, like squeezing underneath the entertainment center to get to some wires, he’ll stop at nothing to do it.

Walter is more like a human than like any dog I’ve ever owned. It certainly makes rabbit ownership exciting – and frustrating! What were your misconceptions about rabbit personalities prior to owning your first rabbit? How did your rabbit surprise you?

Things Ruined by Rabbit Teeth

I've decided to compile a list of all the things Walter has destroyed with his chompers.  This list does not include items that we’ve given to him as rabbit-approved chewthings.  I will update this list as it grows, which it will inevitably do.  Please feel free to leave your own list in the comments section.

• Over a dozen buttons on the remote control
• Wires to two surround-sound speakers
• Power cord to a laptop battery charger
• Approximately twenty inches’ worth of baseboard molding
• Six inches of doorframe molding
• A few inches of closet door wood slats
• One rubber stopper from a doorstop
• Several sections of a wicker basket
• Portions of the handle to my Longchamp bag
• Pieces of various shoes and flip-flops

Rabbits Love Chores

Early on in my rabbit ownership, I read online somewhere about a woman whose rabbit would follow her around the house as she cleaned.  I thought this was adorable but unique, and after knowing Walter for a few months, assumed this would never be the relationship I had with my bunny.  But, as it turns out, Walter’s favorite part of the week is Chore Day.  I am sure he is the only one in our house that enjoys this day.  My boyfriend and I use a divide-and-conquer approach to chores, which puts the apartment in quite a state of commotion.  Walter loves the hustle and bustle of Chore Day.

First up is the laundry.  For Walter, this means a chance to hang out in the bathroom for hours on end.  It’s easiest to sort the laundry loads if the bathroom door is open, so Walter takes full advantage of this opportunity.  As I sort darks, lights, and whites, the rabbit hops from pile to pile, smelling the dirty clothes, digging through mounds of socks, and trying to figure out how to climb into the laundry basket.  In between laundry loads, Walter lounges behind the toilet, taking naps and grooming himself.  Occasionally we’ll hear him darting in circles around the bathroom, turning it into his own race track.

While I’m taking care of the laundry, Paul sets to sweeping the apartment.  This fascinates Walter.  For starters, the broom itself looks like a fun toy with chewable parts.  This makes sweeping pretty difficult. Unlike the laundry, where the rabbit is present but out of the way, sweeping the apartment usually involves getting Walter to stop chewing the bristles or at least moving out of the area that Paul’s trying to sweep.  Once the rabbit has had enough of the bristles, the next challenge is getting him out of the dust piles.  These are not laundry piles; he can’t hop around in them.  But he smells bits of hay or rabbit droppings or rabbit fur, and he wants to explore the piles that smell just like him.  This often means one pile of sweepings has now turned into three little piles, complete with a trail of dust to wherever is Walter’s next destination.  Sweeping is not Paul’s favorite chore.

The last big chore of the day is cleaning the rabbit cage.  Typically, I disassemble the cage in the living room, leaving Walter with all his toys, food, and the top portion of the cage to play with.  I carry the bottom of the cage into the bathroom, where I empty it of bedding, hay, and droppings, wash it, disinfect it, and dry it.  Every now and then, Walter will hop into the bathroom to see what’s going on, but leave after a few uninteresting minutes.

Last night, I only had enough time to do a quick clean.  This meant scooping out all the dirty bedding, leftover hay, and non-litter-boxed droppings and replacing it with clean bedding.  I kept the cage in the living room while doing this.  That was a mistake.  Walter, a routine-loving rabbit, was very confused and displeased by this.  Though he was busying himself on the other side of the room, he dashed back to his cage just as I set to work, hopped inside and stayed put.  Knowing better than to clean a cage while the rabbit is inside, I waited.  And waited.  Paul tried luring Walter out of the cage with a fresh bit of pepper, but Walter would not budge.  Finally we gave up and let Walter just stay in the cage and eat the pepper.  Eventually, the rabbit got bored and left me to cleaning, but not without perching himself on my leg to watch the quality of work being done.  What a micromanager!

There are plenty of chores that do not interest our rabbit, like washing dishes and cleaning the bathroom.  And while I enjoy his company and rabbit-style assistance with keeping the house clean, I can’t help but wish he had opposable thumbs that could hold a broom or fold some laundry every now and then. 

Walter's Easter Photo Shoot

As promised in my last post, here are the pictures from Walter's first Easter.  He's about a month or so old here and these pictures were taken about a month before I was able to pick him up and bring him home.  I love his "airplane ears" in the first picture, as well as his squinty eyes in the last picture, which seem to show that he's so over this photo session.  What a little grump!

Look at all that baby bunny fat!

He could be a Cadbury Egg bunny.

Is this over yet?

Many thanks to his breeder, Terry, of KNT Trail Rabbitry for providing me with these pictures - and so quickly, too! She and her family have since decided to no longer breed rabbits, but still have some available kits in the nursery.  If you live in the Maryland/DC/Northern Virginia area, I highly recommend Terry and her rabbits.

Love Bunny

I'm still waiting to hear from the veterinarian about Walter's blood test results.  The labs won't come back for another two or three days, so I'm being as patient and hopeful as I can.  In the meantime, Walter seems to be as happy as a clam! All evening long yesterday, he was playful and only a tiny bit mischievous. Rabbits, in my experience, can be moody and unpredictable.  I am eternally grateful for days like yesterday when my bunny can be trusted to roam the apartment without an overly watchful eye, entertain himself with rabbit-appropriate toys, and turn to me for a snuggle or two.  Snuggly rabbit days always remind me of an email that I received from Walter's breeder:

"Walter is such a love bunny!  We had an Easter photo shoot today, so there are new pics up."

(I'm working to see if I can retrieve copies of the photo from Walter's Easter glamour shots, since I didn't seem to save them anywhere on my computer.  Once I get them, I'll post them here.)

When we first brought Walter home with us, he spent a lot of time ignoring me and Paul.  He was downright adamant about doing anything but letting us pet him.  I knew that it could take a while for a bunny to bond with its owners, but I was impatient; I was used to owning a dog, which love everyone forever instantly.  During Walter's initial veterinarian exam, the doctor told us that he could tell our rabbit would be docile and sweet once he outgrew his childhood.  At this point, I couldn't believe it.

I'll never forget the first time I realized that our rabbit did bond with us. After spending weeks celebrating the tiniest moments of rabbit affection (seriously - I would get excited because Walter let me run my hand down his back one whole time before hopping away), it was almost like a switch flipped in Walter's bunny brain.  He was, as usual, hanging out underneath the sofa.  I laid down on the floor to check on him and expected him to look at me with apathy.  Instead, he scooted his body just a few inches closer to me, stretched out his neck, and offered his bunny face for a forehead and cheek scratching session.  And that's when I heard (and felt!) him grind his teeth softly: the rabbit equivalent to a kitten's purr.

From then on, we were official friends.  He began following me around the house, "helping" with chores (his favorite is laundry - he likes to hop in the piles of clothes while I sort darks from lights), and laying down next to us while we watch TV, content to receive rubs when he's not in the midst of a cleaning session.

He's still a naughty bunny on some days, but he always redeems himself with his sweet rabbit eyes and a simple snuggle or two.