Pet Stories II

Since it will be April soon and we will be celebrating Easter in just a couple of weeks, I thought I would share a short post on another of our pets. Dustbunny.

One morning one of the administrative assistants (Roberta) which worked in my office asked me if I would be willing to adopt a couple of rabbits. I wasn't really interested in rabbits (or knew anything about them), but when she told me their story, I decided to help.

It seems that Roberta's neighbors down the street had been sold 6 rabbits; these were supposed to be 'eating' rabbits, but it turned out they were dwarf bunnies. When they found out they weren't the right kind of rabbits, they asked Roberta to take them. Roberta couldn't keep them as she had her own menagerie to care for; so she found a number of people to take the rabbits.

I brought 2 of the rabbits home. One was an albino I named 'Snow', the other was a white rabbit which had these darling grey patches on his paws and nose, he looked like he had been rooting around under the bed..... so I named him 'Dustbunny'.
Though both rabbits were kept in a large cage on a shaded porch, we discovered that the heat in Riverside, California was too much for 'Snow'. We lost him within 3 days.

We moved to Colorado about 6 months later.
Dave built a lovely large hutch with a little house for Dustbunny. We also had 2 dogs at the time, Fritz (German Shorthair Pointer) and Shilo (Golden Retriever). Shilo and Dustbunny got on fine; Shilo was an extremely mellow animal. She would lay down in the yard and Dustbunny would hop around her, or lay next to her. Fritz and Dustbunny on the other hand, had a healthy respect for each other, with Fritz mostly staying about 2 feet away from Dustbunny. We would let Dustbunny run around the yard for bits of time when the weather was nice and we were out there watching him and the dogs.

If Fritz got too close the rabbit; he would start to thump. We learned quickly that this was Dustbunny's 1st warning, his 2nd warning was to start growling. His third and last warning was to lunge at you with his paws (and sharp claws) scrabbling, as if he was going to scratch you. He never hurt us or the dogs, but he did look fierce.

In the winter we would fill his hutch with hay, so he could stay warm.Half the time we would find him squished between the hay and the top of his hutch, covered with snow.He would have this contrary, grouchy look on his face; he looked so cute, we had a hard time NOT laughing. If the temperatures dipped too low at night, Dustbunny and the dogs would come inside and spend the night. During these times Dustbunny would be very grouchy, as his 'indoor' cage was much smaller. He would chew on the bars and rattle them, letting us know he wanted out. We would let him out for a bit and he would either sit next to Dave on the couch or would run around the room. If Fritz got to nosy (and close), Dustbunny would start thumping. It is amazing how loud they are when they thump. When this happened, we knew it was time for Dustbunny to be put back in his cage. We didn't know exactly what would happen if Dustbunny and Fritz were left alone together, and we never wanted to find out.

We had Dustbunny for 2.5 years, until we moved to Florida. We found a good home for him with a 10 year old boy down the street. We hope he had a good long life; cause he was such a little sweetheart.
I will have to try and find some photographs of him to share.