A Bunny Tail
April 14
A Bunny Tail
Easter reminds me of her
Mom says I’ve always been a bunny person. A couple weeks ago when I was helping her go through the old stuffed animals Sarah and I had accumulated throughout the years, I noticed there were a lot of bunny rabbits in the mix. I don’t remember liking bunnies so much growing up, but I guess I did.
I remember one of my favorite presents as a child was a rabbit puppet from my uncle John. He had it packed away in his suitcase one year, and made me keep it a secret that he had given it to me; I’m sure he did the same thing with Sarah because he is the greatest uncle ever. I still have that bunny; she sits next to pooh bear on my bed to this day.
When I first moved to Denver, my ex, the dreamer, and I had just moved into our first apartment. It was a couple months after the Easter holiday, and there were news stories about all the families who given their children rabbits on Easter morning, but had decided against it. People were taking them back to the pet stores in droves, and I couldn’t help but gush over the images they were showing.
I hadn’t found a job yet, since we had just moved in, and I was lonely since my ex was in school all day and already working. One day when I was out running errands I came home to a surprise. I opened the door and my ex was standing there with a little tiny bunny rabbit in his arms. She was so little and so precious as I held her to me. She had the cutest little cotton tail and she loved to sniff and tickle you with her whiskers. She was so soft it was like holding a cloud. I called her, simply, Bunny.
Over the years as she grew I moved her from the small cramped cage she lived in as a baby, to an elaborate multi level bunny condo, complete with a log cabin that she loved to hide in. I didn’t name her for a couple years, until mom came to visit me and playfully called her Hop along Cassidy one day while Bunny was roaming the carpet in my apartment. She became Cassidy from that day on. But she had a lot of nicknames too- Cass, Mama Cass, Cassie, piggy, etc. even though I still lovingly called her Bunny most of the time.
There are a lot of things I didn’t know about owning a rabbit as a pet. You can treat them like a house cat, letting them have free roam of the house if you wish, but they love to chew. What a lot of people don’t know about rabbits is that their front teeth are continuously growing, hence the need for constant chewing. The corners of my walls, the baseboards, and electrical wires in my house suffered greatly from her chewing, so I was constantly chasing her away from the corners of anything within her reach. Christmas tree lights never lasted more than a couple of days either.
Everyone has seen the movie Bambi right? Thumper is so adorable when he thumps and proclaims “I'm thumpin! That's why they call me Thumper!” When it is 3am and suddenly your bunny decides to start thumping on the floor of her cage, it is startling! Nothing adorable about your heart jumping out of your chest when you are deep in sleep. I used to watch her, she would get all balled up, on all fours and her ears would lie back...and then suddenly...THUMP! She would quickly tense up and smack her back feet on the floor like she was spring loaded. I still don’t know why bunnies thump; it is an interesting thing to witness though.
She loved to swim. I know this sounds funny, but really she did! I would have to give her baths a lot because her fur was so dense around her backside that she couldn’t get her head around her fat little body to clean herself. I’d run a warm shallow bath for her, and she would run and hide (her favorite place to hide was inside the box spring of my bed that she had secretly made a nest inside of, that was fun to clean up) I would finally round her up, and I knew she loved to swim, but she hated the bath part. She would grunt at me like a little piglet until I got her into the water. Once she was there, her legs would straighten out, her little tail would unfold and I would let her float there in the bath water. She was a great swimmer! You would never know that about rabbits unless you’ve seen it before, but it’s true. She loved it.
One day after a bath I wrapped her in a towel and carried her around for a bit while I did some cleaning in the kitchen. I put her little towel-wrapped body down on the carpet next to a plastic grocery bag and turned my back for a second. The next thing I knew she had wriggled out of the towel and had the shopping bag in her teeth, tugging at it and hopping around the bag with her ears perked straight up. I had never seen her so excited about something. She had a lot of toys, but she never reacted to any of them like the shopping bag.
She hopped around the apartment that day with the bag in tow like it was her blanky. She had her head held high, and it was as if she was prancing she was so proud of it. Soon her pace quickened and she learned that if she ran with the bag trailing behind her, it would catch the air and fly above her like a parachute. It became apparent that this bag was now her favorite toy. For the next few years, whenever she was out, she would immediately find her baggie and go running with it flying in the air behind her, around the apartment. It was the silliest and funniest thing I had ever seen. It made me so happy to see her like that.
As the years went on, Cassidy got older, and less and less sociable. She loved to be out on the balcony, in the leaves, and would chase you off if you tried to join her. She had her territory and loved to be alone. She didn’t like to be held anymore, although she still loved her nose and head scratched occasionally. She would still let me give her eskimo kisses too. Most days she would stay in the little nest she had built for herself inside her condo and just sleep the day away.
One day, I found her curled up in a little ball at the bottom of her cage. She was quite sick. I knew she was sick because she actually let me pick her up without grunting at me. I held her to my heart and she snuggled under my chin with her tickly little whiskers. I warmed a towel and wrapped her in it like a baby and cradled her in my arms as she slept. Bunny didn’t make it through the morning. The vet said she had a mass in her tummy that probably was a cancer; poor little bunny. I had her cremated with her favorite blanket from her nest. That was one of the hardest days I've had to get through.
I was heartbroken over her for a long long time. Even after all the trouble she was, the chewing, the piggy grunting, the thumping at 3am, the wireless christmas tree lights, and the burrowing into my box spring, she was still my favorite little pet. Although I wouldn’t recommend buying a rabbit for small children, and now I understand all those parents I saw so long ago on the news who took back their bunnies to the pet stores, I loved my Bunny and Im glad I didnt take her back. She was sweet, in her own special bunny-with-an-attitude way. And I know she loved me too. I miss her, my sweet little Easter bunny. She still makes me smile.
I got home from work today and found that the Easter Bunny had visited my house early this year! I had an Easter basket filled with chocolate eggs, and an Easter Lilly! Thank you Easter Bunny. Thank you also for the beautiful little soap dish, my great grandmother Winnie Lou Bush hand painted it in 1971, it is definitely a treasure.
Happy Easter!
(¯`v´¯)
`*.¸.*´
¸.•´¸.•*¨) ¸.•*¨)
(¸.•´ (¸.•´ .•´ ¸¸.•¨¯`•. jenni
A Bunny Tail
Easter reminds me of her
Mom says I’ve always been a bunny person. A couple weeks ago when I was helping her go through the old stuffed animals Sarah and I had accumulated throughout the years, I noticed there were a lot of bunny rabbits in the mix. I don’t remember liking bunnies so much growing up, but I guess I did.
I remember one of my favorite presents as a child was a rabbit puppet from my uncle John. He had it packed away in his suitcase one year, and made me keep it a secret that he had given it to me; I’m sure he did the same thing with Sarah because he is the greatest uncle ever. I still have that bunny; she sits next to pooh bear on my bed to this day.
When I first moved to Denver, my ex, the dreamer, and I had just moved into our first apartment. It was a couple months after the Easter holiday, and there were news stories about all the families who given their children rabbits on Easter morning, but had decided against it. People were taking them back to the pet stores in droves, and I couldn’t help but gush over the images they were showing.
I hadn’t found a job yet, since we had just moved in, and I was lonely since my ex was in school all day and already working. One day when I was out running errands I came home to a surprise. I opened the door and my ex was standing there with a little tiny bunny rabbit in his arms. She was so little and so precious as I held her to me. She had the cutest little cotton tail and she loved to sniff and tickle you with her whiskers. She was so soft it was like holding a cloud. I called her, simply, Bunny.
Over the years as she grew I moved her from the small cramped cage she lived in as a baby, to an elaborate multi level bunny condo, complete with a log cabin that she loved to hide in. I didn’t name her for a couple years, until mom came to visit me and playfully called her Hop along Cassidy one day while Bunny was roaming the carpet in my apartment. She became Cassidy from that day on. But she had a lot of nicknames too- Cass, Mama Cass, Cassie, piggy, etc. even though I still lovingly called her Bunny most of the time.
There are a lot of things I didn’t know about owning a rabbit as a pet. You can treat them like a house cat, letting them have free roam of the house if you wish, but they love to chew. What a lot of people don’t know about rabbits is that their front teeth are continuously growing, hence the need for constant chewing. The corners of my walls, the baseboards, and electrical wires in my house suffered greatly from her chewing, so I was constantly chasing her away from the corners of anything within her reach. Christmas tree lights never lasted more than a couple of days either.
Everyone has seen the movie Bambi right? Thumper is so adorable when he thumps and proclaims “I'm thumpin! That's why they call me Thumper!” When it is 3am and suddenly your bunny decides to start thumping on the floor of her cage, it is startling! Nothing adorable about your heart jumping out of your chest when you are deep in sleep. I used to watch her, she would get all balled up, on all fours and her ears would lie back...and then suddenly...THUMP! She would quickly tense up and smack her back feet on the floor like she was spring loaded. I still don’t know why bunnies thump; it is an interesting thing to witness though.
She loved to swim. I know this sounds funny, but really she did! I would have to give her baths a lot because her fur was so dense around her backside that she couldn’t get her head around her fat little body to clean herself. I’d run a warm shallow bath for her, and she would run and hide (her favorite place to hide was inside the box spring of my bed that she had secretly made a nest inside of, that was fun to clean up) I would finally round her up, and I knew she loved to swim, but she hated the bath part. She would grunt at me like a little piglet until I got her into the water. Once she was there, her legs would straighten out, her little tail would unfold and I would let her float there in the bath water. She was a great swimmer! You would never know that about rabbits unless you’ve seen it before, but it’s true. She loved it.
One day after a bath I wrapped her in a towel and carried her around for a bit while I did some cleaning in the kitchen. I put her little towel-wrapped body down on the carpet next to a plastic grocery bag and turned my back for a second. The next thing I knew she had wriggled out of the towel and had the shopping bag in her teeth, tugging at it and hopping around the bag with her ears perked straight up. I had never seen her so excited about something. She had a lot of toys, but she never reacted to any of them like the shopping bag.
She hopped around the apartment that day with the bag in tow like it was her blanky. She had her head held high, and it was as if she was prancing she was so proud of it. Soon her pace quickened and she learned that if she ran with the bag trailing behind her, it would catch the air and fly above her like a parachute. It became apparent that this bag was now her favorite toy. For the next few years, whenever she was out, she would immediately find her baggie and go running with it flying in the air behind her, around the apartment. It was the silliest and funniest thing I had ever seen. It made me so happy to see her like that.
As the years went on, Cassidy got older, and less and less sociable. She loved to be out on the balcony, in the leaves, and would chase you off if you tried to join her. She had her territory and loved to be alone. She didn’t like to be held anymore, although she still loved her nose and head scratched occasionally. She would still let me give her eskimo kisses too. Most days she would stay in the little nest she had built for herself inside her condo and just sleep the day away.
One day, I found her curled up in a little ball at the bottom of her cage. She was quite sick. I knew she was sick because she actually let me pick her up without grunting at me. I held her to my heart and she snuggled under my chin with her tickly little whiskers. I warmed a towel and wrapped her in it like a baby and cradled her in my arms as she slept. Bunny didn’t make it through the morning. The vet said she had a mass in her tummy that probably was a cancer; poor little bunny. I had her cremated with her favorite blanket from her nest. That was one of the hardest days I've had to get through.
I was heartbroken over her for a long long time. Even after all the trouble she was, the chewing, the piggy grunting, the thumping at 3am, the wireless christmas tree lights, and the burrowing into my box spring, she was still my favorite little pet. Although I wouldn’t recommend buying a rabbit for small children, and now I understand all those parents I saw so long ago on the news who took back their bunnies to the pet stores, I loved my Bunny and Im glad I didnt take her back. She was sweet, in her own special bunny-with-an-attitude way. And I know she loved me too. I miss her, my sweet little Easter bunny. She still makes me smile.
I got home from work today and found that the Easter Bunny had visited my house early this year! I had an Easter basket filled with chocolate eggs, and an Easter Lilly! Thank you Easter Bunny. Thank you also for the beautiful little soap dish, my great grandmother Winnie Lou Bush hand painted it in 1971, it is definitely a treasure.
Happy Easter!
(¯`v´¯)
`*.¸.*´
¸.•´¸.•*¨) ¸.•*¨)
(¸.•´ (¸.•´ .•´ ¸¸.•¨¯`•. jenni
posted by Jenni at
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