Proud bunny parents…

[Spacehopper]

Oh how it makes me smile at  how everyone on here is just so wholeheartedly proud and in love with their adorable fluffbums.  It was all I could do last week not to give my boss a few choice words and a swift kick to the shin, as we stood in my office.   A delivery man came in and commented on the pics of my bunnybums on the wall, saying how he had just got his daughter 2 house rabbits.  My boss had the barefaced cheek to say, whilst screwing up her face, "Oh No, rabbits REALLY aren’t my thing".  The large open mouthed/ wide eyed gasp must have been quite audible as she then laughed falsely, and scurried off quick, her shins in tact…THIS TIME!

[Beka27]

i wonder if rabbits will ever be fully accepted by the general population, even by some supposed rabbit people…  this is bad, but i tend to have a bunny-people prejudice too…  i’m sure everyone here has told someone they have a rabbit…. they say, "oh we do too."  then you go over and you see this poor animal and it’s withering away in a too small cage.  you ask how often they let bunny out to play… they say, "out?!"

[Spacehopper]

Oh i agree! lol I work in a day centre for adults with learning disabilities, and every monday one of the girls comes and helps me out and we share tales of our rabbits as she and her home manager have rabbits (garden rabbits NOT allowed in the house) She always comes in with scratches, and last monday gave me a picture for the wall of her with her home managers bunny Skidz, poor Skidz is upended (looking quite comfy i suppose) with a water bottle shoved in his face. Yet, she’s SO proud of her bun and was elated when they came back with a hutch and run combined. I was horrified. Might be the British styles, but they are TINY, and not exactly what you would call a “run”….a hop and flop perhaps, a run? NO! 🙂

[Thumpers_Mom]

The nerve of people!  

My brother thinks I’m weird…but he is utterly in love with Thumper.  

I definitely agree that I don’t think they will be accepted by the general population.  I actually had a few choice words with Jet blue the other day  because they allow dogs and cats on their planes but NOT bunnies!  I think that is rediculous. I am sooo upset that the tkts were bought before I realized this and now I am going to have to leave Thumper home (with my Grandfather watching him). It is only for two days but I cringe at not being able to play with him.

Spacehopper – your boss was lucky…THIS TIME!  LOL

[Floppy]

Yeah, Rabbit people are special bunch…you know rabbits are considered “exotic”
my bun would laugh, he thinks he is just a plain ol’ bun! LOL really though, most people
just don’t understand the joys of owning a rabbit and yes, it is hard to bite my tongue
and tell people that rabbits need room, yes they can be litter trained (don’t give me that
weird look!) and yes they do need to be fixed also! UGH!!!!!!!!!!

[Gravehearted]

ooo *grumble* well at least she didn’t start talking about recipes – that makes me very upset and I think it’s downright offensive and insensitive. I don’t get why people think it’s funny to talk about despite my asking them not to, it makes me ill.

Maybe your boss has the misconception that rabbits are rodents and thinks of them like rats and mice? That being said, I think rats are fantastic pets too.

I consider my bunnies to be ambassadors. Many people don’t seem to know much (if anything) about house rabbits and my kids help win them over. We have one friend who adopted a bunny and volunteers with our local shelter thanks to my buns convincing him he couldn’t live without a bun.

I’ve had rabbits since I was really young, back then no one knew what to make of us having a house rabbit. Everyone would come over and want to see Droste. It seems like they’ve become much more common as pets over time, so no one seems to be amazed that we have bunnies.

[osprey]

For the most part, people can’t get over the rabbit living in the house thing.  We know lots of people who have rabbits, either in hutches in the yard or cages in the house, but few who actually share their living space with rabbits.  When people hear I have 3, they often say "Aren’t you having babies all the time?"  It never occurs to them that this is no different than someone who has multiple dogs or cats.  On the positive side, people who come over are always amazed at how interactive our buns are, how they stand on their back legs to say hello, and come up to people for nose rubs.  People are used to rabbits who are not used to being handled and are terrified of people.

 

[PocketFaeries]

Oooh, new as I am here, I just love this group of people here! 

I am already used to people having lots of misconceptions about the animals I love and care for, being the proud mommy of two sugar gliders.  Like bunnies, sugar gliders often get written off into miscategorized stereotypes and being so unusual and exotic, a LOT of people mistreat them.

Sugar gliders are marsupials…in the same family as koala bears and kangaroos…but because of their tiny size and absolute cuteness, many people just throw them in cages like they are hamsters.  Gliders can literally die of loneliness and depression if not given appropriate bonding and interaction. Gliders have high intelligence, and display use of tools, as well as having opposeable thumbs just like humans and monkeys. Their diet is quite complex. They require a great deal of specialized knowledge, care, and environmental setup in order to be happily accomodated in captivity.  When people find out that I let tiny marsupials sleep in my bra during the day if they want to, I get all sorts of looks!  

Back to buns, though, I could never justify bringing an animal into my care just to throw it outside in a hutch! I personally feel that it’s absolutely FINE if soneone isn’t a bunny person…but just don’t GET one then, you know?  It’s along the same lines as any kind of logic…if you don’t like children, that’s okay…just don’t have any and don’t become a teacher!

It’s when people don’t have the interest or time, or funds, to support an animal properly, but yet impulsively get it anyhow because "it’s so cute" or "I want one" that bothers me. Finn does not have a cage. S/he has a 4 foot by 4 foot "area" that is loosely a pen…but Finn can come and go.  We keep Finn’s area in our parlor, and the doors close so that the room is safely shut for Finn whenever we aren’t able to watch during free roaming.  I just couldn’t imagine purposely taking Finn into my care, only to make the bun stay outside alone. It doesn’t make sense. I’m so glad you all understand and share these feelings!  I don’t bring animals into my life unless I have something beneficial to offer them in the way off their quality of life.  They are my family members!

[5cats1bun]

gotta love people. you know how I took those baby buns in?I thought I had a home lined untill she asked if the NIC cage I wanted her to have good be out doors, and I said nope no buns for you! I too hate hate when people start going on about bunny stew and what now, a guy I work with is quite cruel to me about and that is one of the few things I will really get going on. Generally i’ve very quiet and probably don’t seem very opinonated to most.

[Spacehopper]

I have just seen some VERY cute pics of sugar gliders, and OH MY!!!!! Scrummy!

Our Physio came in yesterday afternoon and was taken with the playhouse thing, she was chatting away about rabbits yet was horrified when I said mine are house rabbits and had free run of the place and don’t ever get locked away. "Eeeouw! That can’t be very clean". "Erm they’re both litter trained actually" "well now i’ve heard everything, it sounds INTERESTING"… I fail to see what exactly she found so interesting. I didn’t dare tell her they come up on the bed in the night whenever they want, she’d have collapsed, stupid woman. Hrrumpff! people like her have the misconception that rabbits are smelly stinky things, purely because it’s people like her that leave their "pet" rabbits in a grotty, cold, earwig infested hutch, cleaning it out once a fortnight because "it’s got to be done".  ARghh!

[Deleted User]

My husband and I have gotten very horrible responses from a lot of people since getting our bunnies.

Before we got them one of my husbands friends invited him over for dinner and fed him a hamburge then after he finished eating told him it was rabbit. My husband couldnt stop throwing up he was so upset.

Since getting our bunnies one person actually said," WHy the F*** would you do that now you can’t get a dog" Obviously if we had wanted a dog we would have gotten a dog, now wouldnt we. People are really sheltered I think and completely miss the concept that bunnies can be great pets if you are willing to give them the right home and the right attention.

Bunny Lovers Unite

[(dig)x(me)x(now)]

I haven’t really gotten negative responses from people since getting my bun. I’ve actually inspired two people to get bunnies themselves. One of them even called mine dirty or something when I first got it! I told her I’ll be on her ass if she doesn’t take care of it properly!

People are often surprised knowing that Frankie is litter trained and neutered, but alway seem to think it’s pretty interesting.

If I don’t get a confused response about that, I’ll get stories like “I had a bunny for ten years! She was great!” or “I had a bunny growing up” and they’re happy to hear about Frankie.

The only semi-negative stuff is my grandpa joking about rabbit stew or something, and my dad and his siblings had a rabbit once upon a time. I can take a joke, though.

[BinkyBunny]

Spacehopper – great subject to bring up! I’ve really had a variety of responses, from wow, cool, to what? and EWWW!
Anbarrineau – I can’t believe your husband’s friend did that to him!!! That’s horrible!!!!

I think I can usually let the negative roll of my shoulders because I think, well, they’re not open, too bad, at least they don’t have a bunny of their own. What bothers me the most are people who have rabbits, treat them so poorly and refuse to learn more. I hate being at events, and someone says…”Oh, I had rabbits as a kid, they bite, and are smellly!” Or they’ll say that their bunny was perfectly happy in a backyard hutch, and the person won’t even look at the indoor option. They just think they know it all, and blow you off like your some whacked out fanatic.

[Spacehopper]

I find it’s that whole, “but wouldn’t you rather have a dog?” I told the boyfriend i had written about our housebunnybum to the animal section of our local paper. He told me under no circumstance do i mention his name. Fine i thought….even when the reporter phoned me up i had second thoughts about the article and avoided his calls. THEN i found out the boyfriend (yes he HIMSELF) didnt want his name mentioned in case his friends saw it and laughed at him having a rabbit, and not some big tough “mandog”. Well that was it, i spoke to the reporter, gave name, rank & number, he told me he was putting it in the Barmy Bucks section of the paper, (flippin’ cheek) tho really well that was even better. He was furious until it turned out no one thought he was any less of a man, they just found the whole thing hilarious. He still hasn’t forgiven me for the parting line of, “If truth be told I much prefer spending time with my Bum than my boyfriend”, but he wouldn’t dare be ashamed of our little treasures again!!! 🙂

I have on my yellow and gold bunny hoodie today (from website mentioned on here the other day), whoooohooo!!!!!!!

[MooBunnay]

I find that when I say that I have house rabbits I immediately have to say “they are litterbox trained – like cats” or else people think I’m living in a house that has wood chips instead of a floor

What I REALLY can’t stand is any time I tell someone I rescue rabbits they just HAVE to tell me some awful story about what their friend did to a rabbit – this has happened to me more times than I can count. It happened to me just last week. I went out with a couple co-workers and I told them about my bunnies and this lady goes, “oh my neighbor had bunnies and it was just awful what happened to them” and I said “please don’t tell me, it really upsets me” and she proceeded to tell me ANYWAYS! And these are my new co-workers at a new site so I didn’t feel like I could throw a fit – and now this horrible story has been haunting me and it makes me so MAD! And then one time (I think I posted about this) someone at work sent me an email that said “happy easter” and attached was a pic. with a bodyless bunny head in a dogs mouth – I think it was photoshopped but it was so disturbing I started crying at work. How can people think this stuff is funny? THEN the idiot told me his daughter wanted a bunny and how could he go about getting one? That was about 2 months after the picture incident, but I was so shocked that I told him I’d look into it and never got near him again.

[wendyzski]

I post my Pepper stories on my blog all the time.  Still, when one of my readers went to his sister’s house (she has a bunny and a cat that get along) he was stunned that the bun hopped up on the couch and tried to get at the raisins he was eating.  I replied "you haven’t been paying attention have you?"

Even after more than a year of stories about Pepper – Warrior Princess and her antics, he STILL had this idea in his head that rabbit=timid.  Silly boy.

[PocketFaeries]

I think it’s wonderful that this online community exists to help keep all of us feeling sane about our animals and especially our buns!

I’m honestly disgusted that a "friend" would feed a pet animal to your husband.  This to me, seems far outside of the realm of simple sarcasm or humor.  I personally think it was extremely cruel…not something a friend does to another friend at all.

So far, nobody has given *me* any flack about having a bun, but then again, it’s more just a general eye roll with that "there she goes with another animal again" thing. LOL  Having an entire room of my house set as a playroom/gym for my sugar gliders has pretty much paved the way for an "anything goes" attitude amongst my friends and family at this point! LOL

Clearly, negative…or ignorant…attitudes towards house bunnies reflects much more upon the people who present this type of thinking versus the bunnies themselves!

I don’t have a "preachy" attitude about how everyone "must" love animals,  much less my animals in specific. However, that said, I really do think that those of us who have learned to live in joyful harmony within our homes with animals are probably the most easy to spot caregivers and nurturers anywhere.  People who aren’t open to loving animals as furry family members are missing something…in my opinion.

[poopy]

I used to HATE rabbits before I was educated about them- the reason being that wild rabbits poop all over SoCal and it gets on our shoes its nasty, so naturally I didn’t want to have a rabbit based on the thought that they poop all over. I believe this is the biggest misrepresentation out there, that rabbits poop/pee all over.

Once I found out they can be potty-trained, it was fine! Slowly as more and more people become educated about rabbits, rabbits will eventually be excepted as house pets.

[Beka27]

^^^unfortunately tho… just because they may one day be accepted as house pets, does not mean that they’ll be treated properly.  cats and dogs have been accepted as house pets for years (probably what? at least a hundred years or so in the USA?)  but everyday i hear stories about how they are mistreated and abused.  people need to be educated.  if they cannot properly care for an animal (whether that be a rabbit, a dog or a goldfish) they should not have a pet.

[Scarlet_Rose]

I don’t get the funny looks like I used to and the snide remarks.  People are actually very dumbfounded when I tell them that their favorite treat is banana and it makes their fannies twitch.

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