There is some progress to report in the ongoing *saga* to re-bond Missy and Freckles so that they can live together again. Both look somewhat cautious, if not slightly annoyed, in the photo at left. Being this close to one another and sharing the pooty box is a good sign. I felt comfortable enough today to step out of the pen for the first time and leave them be to see what might happen.

For those of you who don’t know bunnies and who think rabbits are snuggly balls of fluff (as the photos of Boomer and Cricket might lead you to believe) – well, you’re probably wondering what all the fuss is about, right? I admit that I’m overly cautious, but rabbits are very territorial, especially females, and can really hurt one another. I’d like to avoid anybunny getting hurt so I’m taking this very slowly.

Today was a good day, Missy and Freckles are showing signs of being able to get along; I was happy to be able to step away and let them work out their issues. Unfortunately, it seems like they still have the same issues as they always did. Missy wants to be the boss and so does Freckles. Freckles is the submissive one, usually, but she’s not ready yet to feign over Missy the way Missy thinks she ought to. So, they arrive at something of a standoff. Both bunnies think the other should give all of the affection. Missy takes the lead and washes Freckles ears and eyes, but not nearly as gently as she should. Missy’s roughness makes Freckles jump, and run away, and then a minor chase ensues. I watched this sequence over and over today. Finally exasperated with both of them, I packed up the x-pen until another day and put them back into their lonely habitats. Both clearly want to be friends, yet they can’t seem to agree on who should make a compromise.

Take a minute and check out what Best Friends Animal Society is doing to improve a sad situation in Reno, Nevada.

If anyone is inclined to wonder why I post so few pictures of Dora, the photo to the left should answer that question. She mostly steps out of any photo I try to take of her. Boomer and Cricket, who appear here most often, are very cooperative and lounge about everywhere. Dora, on the other hand, is very wary.

She has her favorite resting places where she feels safe, but it is hard to get a good photo of her beneath my office chair where she loves to hang out. She naps there and will nudge my feet with her nose or nibble on my pantlegs for attention. I’ll reach down and scratch behind her ears for a while and then she settles back for her nap.

If the dog is too rambuctious or if I’m running the vacuum, she’ll head back to her cage for safety. She’s confined there during the day while I’m at work, but often chooses to relax there. She seems to have a sense for when it is time to go to bed because I will find her waiting for me to close her in before I turn out the lights for the night. In the photo at left, taken on the day I brought her home, she is looking very suspicious of me and my camera.

Dora is a stunningly beautiful rabbit; a Checkered Giant. She is small for her breed (I suspect that is why she was sent to slaughter by her breeder), but she shows the gorgeous markings and graceful shape that is typical of her breed. She even has polka-dots on her belly!

She looses any sense of wariness when I sit on the floor nearby. She dances over and presents her little head on my leg for pets. If I don’t oblige her quickly enough, she licks my pantleg for attention. She hasn’t worked up the courage yet to climb all the way onto my lap, but will settle beside me and click her teeth with contentedness. I think she would stay this way for hours; she loves the attention so much. Like most rabbits, Dora is loving and affectionate when given the chance and on her own terms.

Dora leaps and dances when I come with her salad in the evening. I think she’s leaping more for the little bits of carrot and apple the salad is laced with, rather than the greens. Like most of the bunnies here, she goes for the sweet stuff first. She hates dill for some reason and leaves it behind to wilt at the bottom of the bowl. She’s not a big fan of cilantro either and will only eat it after it sits in the bowl for a few hours and there’s nothing left but the dill!

I used to feed the bunnies huge mountains of salad twice a day, but in the last two years or so have greatly reduced the amount of greens I feed. They still get them twice a day, but in much smaller quantities. I had one bunny who loved greens, but always was gassy from them, so now I’m afraid to feed too much.

Hay is the most important thing for a house rabbit to eat, but like anything that is *good for you*, it often is a challenge to get the bunnies to eat it. Every bunny has their particular likes and dislikes (which change from day to day, it seems) and they’d much rather eat pellets than hay, but too many pellets lead to fat bunnies and other problems.

I buy 50 pounds of 2nd cut timmy hay by mail order every three months and use this as *treat* hay, because it is expensive and 2nd cut is soft and green and lovely – and fattening. I also buy small bags of 1st cut timmy from the petstore each week. In addition, I order a less expensive mix of timmy and oat hay from a small farm in Massachusetts that I use to fill their litterboxes each day. As a result, my basement looks like a hay barn most of the time, but this way I always have something on hand that the bunnies will eat, regardless of how their tastes change from week to week.

Dora, so far, is not a good hay eater and this worries me. She loves to shred and eat willow and newspaper, but only nibbles at the hay in her litterbox and the baskets I keep scattered around my office. I’ve tried every type of hay I have in the basement, but she’s not nuts for any of them. I may have to try a bale from a local horse farm to see if maybe she prefers a more stemmy, brown hay.

This post on the Birdchick Blog today got me thinking about the many ways I invade the bunnies’ privacy by trying to get cute pictures of them. It seems that Birdchick’s bunny Cinnamon disapproves of my posting a photo of Boomer’s butt.

Cricket will not make any comment about how large Cinnamon’s butt appears in this photo, but she certainly disapproves of Cinnamon being so near to a Golden Eagle. I, however, find the Golden to be very cool. Sharon has a great blog and the coolest job (and a very cute rabbit)!

My bunnies are not easy to photograph, so I tend to sneak up on them with the camera when they are otherwise occupied. For example, this photo of Missy playing in her cardboard castle on the patio. The cardboard castle was probably her favorite toy, but the Flemmies destroyed it. Bunny toy manufacturers listen up – there ought to be toys designed for big bunnies! The flemmies were too heavy for the cardboard castle and can’t fit into the cheese house.

I snuck up on Boomer and Cricket to take this picture of them snuggling together in their hidey-box. They sleep their day away there while I’m at work. They really seem to like the fleece bed to sleep on, but it accumulates huge amounts of their shed fur. If I try to brush away the fuzz with my fingers (or heaven forbid the vacuum!) Cricket nudges me away with her nose and tries to nip me. She is very protective of her hidey-box, but only when she is in it! Today I brought the two of them into the petstore for a nail trim, which was quite an ordeal. They both disapprove of nail trims.

Lastly, I have this photo of Freckles peeking out at me from her cheese house. Why she loves this thing so much I can’t guess, but she sure looks cute in it. She’ll scramble around in it for a bit and then flop on her side for a nap. She is a pro at the *dead-bunny-flop* that gives me a small heart attack on a daily basis. She also loves to throw stuff to make noise, like she’s doing right now because her dinner and treats are very late!

I don’t have any embarassing or indiscreet photos of Dora yet, but she’s only been here a few months and is too wary still for me to sneak up on her.

Here’s Boomer showing off his fluffy white tail and just *begging* for me to pet him. Isn’t he gorgeous?

I can’t imagine a life without bunnies.

It occured to me today that I hadn’t yet posted a photo of my first bunny, Miss Buns. Boy would that make her mad!

I’ve had Missy for just over 4 years now. She and Freckles came from the same pet store, before I understood that rabbits are better obtained from rescues and shelters.

Missy is a very bossy rabbit, like many girl bunnies. She has definite opinions and is not afraid to express them by thumping or nipping! She and Freckles lived together (both spayed, of course) for 4 years and Missy terrorized sweet Freckles for most of that time. They were generally loving with one another, but not bonded or in love like Boomer and Cricket. Missy would get in a mood and Freckles had to put up with being bossed and chased around their habitat. Ever since Missy got sick this summer and had to spend 2 weeks at the vet getting better the two have lived apart. Freckles aparently has decided she would rather live alone.

Missy is doing well, but has slowed down a lot. I wonder how much of that is due to the heart condition and chronic respiratory infection or if it is simply that she is lonely and bored. She eats very well, but spends most of her time napping. She continues to do binkies (although wobbly ones) in her pen sometimes in the morning when I bring her salad – especially if there is lots of dill – that is her absolute favorite!

Another holiday season is coming to an end. We had my DH’s family for Christmas Eve and for dinner on Chrsitmas Day. That we were able to seat 15 in my tiny house is pretty amazing! The food and company were good and there were no fistfights – what more could you ask for?

Tomorrow we’re having my family for snacks and dessert in the late afternoon. We’ll also finally get around to exchanging gifts. Then we can put away all the Xmas clutter and get back to our routines.

Each year at Christmas and Easter I exchange greeting cards with other members of the Petbunny List. Most all of the cards have a bunny on them and some people even make their own cards and include photos. This year, because I never got around to making cards, I bought them from A Rabbitt in Paradise. Lots of great bunny-themed items at that site and beautiful artwork on the cards!

We usually receive about 35 cards from the PB Swap and I use them to decorate on the porch where the bunnies live. The bunnies receive more cards than my DH and I do! I wonder what the mailman thinks of all the cards addressed to Miss Buns, Freckles, Boomer and Cricket, and Dora the Explorer!

This is a photo of some of the cards displayed on Dora’s cage. Because they’re hung on the very top outside of her cage, she can’t nibble on them the way the other bunnies do. My favorite of the ones you can see here is the second from the left sent by Mary, G.T., Herman and Freckles. It was made by the Minnesota Companion Rabbit Society and shows a bunny meeting its reflection in a Xmas ball. Very cute! Kathy B. made a beautiful handmade card that you can’t see because it’s hanging on the other side of the cage – I can only imagine the time she spends making these. Just gorgeous!

This next photo is of the cards in Boomer and Cricket’s pen. Please ignore the bunnies gorging themselves at the bottom of the pic – I had just giving them their pellets before I took the photo.

Many beautiful cards there! I try to give everybunny an equal number of cards to display (so nobunny gets jealous!) but Boomer and Cricket have the most, just because they are such big bunnies and their pen is the largest and has the most display space.

Lastly is a pic of Miss Buns and Freckles’ cards. These two love to nibble their cards and toss them around the pen so I have to be careful of the material the cards are made of – no photo cards or anything with glitter, etc. Missy loves to sit in her pooty box and chomp on her cards rather than the hay she should be nibbling on. She is such a little devil! Not sure that it is visible in these tiny pics, but a few cards on the right have been *decorated* by Miss Buns already.