One day a friend and I stopped at a yard sale to play with the bunnies in the yard. I had previously cared for hamsters, chinchillas, and dogs, but never a rabbit, so I put a deposit down on two: One my friend liked, and one that I liked (I will introduce the one I liked next week).
I called up my husband and said, "Remember how I wanted chickens?" He responded, "You didn't!" I said, "No, but I'll be home shortly with a rabbit." Turns out he loves the rabbits too. Since I was already a dog mom 4 times over, and had been a single mom for years before my husband and I married in 2016, I figured "How hard can it be?" Joke's on me. It turns out the hardest part of caring for bunnies is saying "no" to getting more!
Dusty Bunny was the first. He is just Dusty now, but you get the idea about where we came up with his name. He lived alone with us in an outdoor hutch in the springtime, but let me tell you, that boy can dig! So, one night I went out to check on him and he was nowhere to be found! It was dark and I couldn't see and my phone flashlight was not cutting it. My son in his brilliance let the feisty pup we affectionately called "Find it Fe" out, and I got hold of her leash and we walked the entire yard. She was not interested in any particular thing, but wanted to explore everything. She really wasn't much help in the finding aspect, but being prey animals by nature, Dusty did a fun little jump when she got close and that was how we finally found him.
After that episode, we revisited the housing layout.
His buddy needed to be weaned before he could come live with us, and that day finally came. When we introduced them, Dusty took his tiny self and started "dominating" the larger but younger bunny. Once he got the dominance dance out of his system, they lived in harmony even after we brought them inside to be house bunnies, up until we bred the larger rabbit, and then their relationship got a little mean and we had to seperate them.
Dusty likes to think he is the big man on campus, even though (with the exception of our newest baby - literally) he is our smallest bun. He started biting and spraying around the other males from his cage, and the final straw was when he hurt his paw on his cage while trying to fight through it. He now has his own room, and he loves to free roam in the evenings when I visit him at feeding time.
Barring unexpected circumstances, all our buns get daily play time outside their cages and I spend a good 2 hours a day just enjoying their play and laughing at their shenanigans. I call it my "better than television" time.
Dusty will always hold a special place in my heart as the little fireball that started it all. As fiery as is personality is, he is also a sweet little cuddle bug, and I love when he nestles up under my chin and just chills before going back into his cage to eat his dinner. He is the first of many bunnies that now live happily in the home I affectionately call "The Barking Bunny" because of all the critters that now bless the space.
I look forward to meeting others and their animals and hearing the how and why behind it all. I can be reached by phone, email, or through the contact section on this site for information and pricing on the services I offer or just to connect before the unexpected happens. I would love to meet your small animals and hear your animal stories too!
On that note, catch y'all next week!
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