Hello everyone! I’m not sure if anyone remembers me, but I was a member of this board about two years ago. I gradually stopped posting because of various issues (personal problems regarding a new boyfriend and an ax-crazy ex, general embarassment at not getting my bunnies bonded, further embarassment from not posting for such a long time), but I’m now in grad school and have no social life and miss bunny people. I’ve converted the boyfriend to bunny love, but not talking to others about lagomorph-luvvins makes me sad. So! I have returned from the dead!

For those who are new/don’t remember me, I’ve only had bunnies for a few year s but have been taken over completely. My first exposure to pet bunnies was deeply inauspicious: my freshman year of college the custodian at the elementary school my mom works at accidentally mowed a  nest of baby bunnies. They survived, thankfully, but one baby seemed to have been concussed or otherwise damaged. Horrified, and not knowing it was the last thing she should have done, my mom brought home the damaged baby. We didn’t expect the it to live through the night, but we did some research on wild bunnies and tried to make it comfortable. Although it made it through the night, it refused any form of sustenance and died not long after. Both of us were totally distraught and (rightly) blamed ourselves, but we also discovered that we might not be allergic to rabbits– my mom is allergic to every other furry animal, and I had assumed I was allergic to rabbits because I was *actually* allergic to pine shavings, which is what every bunny I had hitherto met had lived in.

Not long after, I noted that there was a very sick-looking rabbit in the scary pet store in the mall I then worked at. He was also much larger and older-looking than the other rabbits there, and I started to worry, seeing him day after day while all the other bunnies were bought, that someone would end up buying him to torment or feed to their snake. Although I no longer condone buying pet store rabbits, I’m very glad I did then. I bought the sad little mini rex and brought him home. (In case you were wondering, this part has a happy ending: Monty, as we named him, is now all grown up and healthy. He’s also not very bright.) We found out he wasn’t actually fully grown at the time– only about six months old– (and we thought he was huge! not hardly.) and once we started doing our homework found a great rabbit vet and had him neutered. He was also quite weak and could barely hop around, but he’s recovered beautifully. However, he does have recurring molar spurs, probably because of the bad start he got. Part of the way through my sophomore year, I left Monty at home one week because I had so many things to bring bad to college with me, and when I went back home the next weekend my mom informed me that he was now *her* bunny! In the end, this was probably for the best, since Monty hates traveling (which I do frequently, back and forth from near Boston to the South Shore) and my mom has no need to put him in the car for anything other than vet visits. And perhaps more importantly, my mom said I could get another bunny now that she had stolen Monty.

(Monty with lots of cardboard)

This time I was careful, and adopted. So, now I have two bunnies: Humphrey and Perry, both neutered. Humphrey is a big rex boy colored like a Guernsey cow. He fluctuates from seven and a half to ten (fat!) pounds depending on what time of the year it is (no matter what I feed him!), and is a wonderful face-cleaner. I’ve had him for almost three years now, and I believe he’s around five years old. He’s the king of giant binkies, and loves to climb. He’s also (unfortunately) very smart, and so likes to do things like escape and eat dangerous materials. Knock on wood, the only serious health problems he’s ever had are from things he’s done to himself– he has actually survived poisoning himself TWICE. *sigh* Before I adopted him, Humphrey had been physically abused and then left to die in the woods, so when I first got him he was (unsurprisingly) somewhat skittish, totally matted, terrified of sudden movements, unable to properly use a litterbox, and had some fairly serious abandonment issues. He has since blossomed beautifully, and is now a brat. 

Humphrey is sort-of-bonded (more on that later) to Perry, who is a three-and-a-half pound dwarf mix. My vet calls him Alice Cooper bunny, since he has two little black circles around his eyes and hates washing himself, so he has a green mouth. A got him as a companion for Humphrey, as Humphrey was displaying bonding behaviors with my stuffed animals, and they had a wonderful bunny first date and then refused to bond ever. (I’ve come to accept this.) Regardless, he and Humphrey are inseperable; they live in a divided X-pen and if one is removed the other becomes exceedingly anxious and waits patiently for his friend to return. They sleep beside each other (through the bars) and kiss each other’s faces all the time, but the moment a physical barrier is removed between them, they start fighting. I’ve had multiple bunny bonding experts throw up their hands in frustration at these two, but they seem happy the way they are, so… good enough? Unlike mostly sweet but occasionally mischeivious Humphrey, Perry is an adorable little devil. He bites, he lunges, he has no grasp of bunny body language, he chases things like he’s a predator, and then he gleefully lets me pick him up and snuggle him and carry him around the house like a baby. He’s ridiculous. I’m also reasonably sure Perry is allergic to the same things I am; whenever I’m having bad seasonal allergies Perry starts sneezing too. Poor baby! Anyway, I’ve had Perry for about two and a half years, and he is also around five years old. Like Humphrey, Perry was mistreated before being relinquished to a shelter, although the HRN believes that he was starved rather than beaten (not like either is better! How can people be so cruel?), as he was dangerously thin when he came into their care. Perry’s favorite activity is lying down and being a lazy, lazy bunny. 

(Humphrey on top, Perry down below)

(Perry looking fat and grumpy)

(Humphrey is actually a sausage)

Un bunny-related, I also have a three-legged chinchilla named Poe. He was born with one back leg missing and half a tail (on Halloween!), but moves just like a normal chinchilla. He turned one this past Halloween, and is both utterly fascinated by and totally terrified of the bunnies. He’s also a total runt and was tiny enough to fit in the palm of my hand when I got him– he’s bigger now, but still pretty shrimpy for a one-year-old chilla. It’s basically impossible to take pictures of him, because he’s either hiding or running.

As for me, my name’s Hannah. I’m currently getting my Master’s in English at Brandeis, and hope next year to be teaching high school English. I live on the bottom floor of a beautiful split level with my lovely boyfriend, and the pets get a whole room to themselves because we don’t wn much in the way of furniture.