SaveABunny

With the holidays coming up, people are getting their travel plans together, and realizing - “Hey! What am I supposed to do with this rabbit while I’m gone??” Unfortunately this train of thought often leads people to simply return the rabbits to wherever they got them from. Like SaveABunny, for instance. This sucks for us because we don’t have a lot of space, and it sucks for the rabbit because he’s losing his home, his family, and everything he’s gotten used to and started caring about since he was adopted. And it especially sucks for the rabbits that we now can’t take in because we don’t have the space anymore.

So, in an effort to get you or someone you know thinking twice before returning a rabbit (or any pet, really,) here’s some alternatives:

1. Boarding. We offer boarding at SaveABunny. We have a lot of excellent resources on hand to spoil your bunny with while you’re away and all the funds go straight back into saving other bunnies. Learn more about our boarding services here. There are other pet boarding options out there, too, all you have to do is look.

2. Pet-sitting. My boyfriend and I have 2 cats and 2 rabbits, and we’re leaving them in the competent hands of Tales of the Kitty for ten days in January while we’re out of the country. The Bay Area is teeming with pet sitters, and many SaveABunny volunteers either offer a rabbit-sitting service themselves, or know someone who does. Send us an email if you’re curious. If you happen to offer pet-sitting, feel free to leave a post in the comments section so other readers can contact you.

3. Asking a friend. I know how hard this is for some people. No one wants to impose on their friends. But when the choice is asking a friend or giving up the rabbit, just take a second to remember that the space that rabbit takes up in the shelter could easily cost another rabbit her life if we don’t have room for her. Suck it up and ask around - you will probably be surprised about how eager a good friend will be to check in on your adorable bunny rabbit for a few days. Just make sure they know the basics and have the vet’s phone number on hand just in case.

4. Taking him with you. I’ll be honest, most rabbits hate traveling, and if you’re not careful, it can be dangerous for them. But that’s not an excuse to just give him back instead. How bad would it be if you brought an adorable fuzzy bunny home for the holidays? Who could possibly complain about that?

5. Not getting a pet in the first place. When you adopt an animal, you assume responsibility for it’s care. Until it dies. Please think carefully about this before adopting any pet from anyone, ever. If you have doubts about your ability to give a rabbit long-term care, you can donate, foster, volunteer, or sponsor a rabbit instead.

Thanks for listening, and if you do have it in you to foster or adopt this holiday season, Alfalfa, Buckwheat and Spanky are just three of our adorable new rabbits that desperately need a home:

We’re thankful for all the wonderful volunteers, fosterers, adopters and animal rescue partners we work with here at SaveABunny, as well as the bunnies themselves, who give us much and ask for remarkably little - even when they need it. We’re also thankful to Marcy Schaaf, the founder of SaveABunny, for her hard work every day, not just saving the lives of rabbits directly, but organizing events, maintaining contacts, attending conferences, and passionately working towards a more rabbit-friendly world. Thanks Marcy.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone out there, from all of us at SaveABunny!

Join us to enjoy some delicious vegan treats and adorable vegan bunnies at 3506 16th St. on Saturday, December 5th. Vegansaurus! is hosting and also has this to say:

We badly need volunteers, eaters, bakers, paper plates, compostable to-go containers & flatware, and hella publicity to make this awesome so mobilize, vegan (pacifist) army and email laura@vegansaurus.com if you can/want to/feel obligated to pitch in! Let’s make this happen!!!

They’re very excited and we are too! Read the full details here.

How does a rabbit see the world? Is it blurry? Colorful? Packed with strangely carrot-shaped items? All excellent questions - and I found a great article that answers many of them. (Except the carrot one. Only rabbits will ever know that.) Here’s five facts about RabbitVision you may not have known:

1. Rabbits can’t see directly in front of them. In that picture of Malcolm up top, he’s not looking at the camera. He probably can’t even see the camera. Yet he seems interested in it - as rabbits often do when they seem to be looking at you face forward. What they’re actually doing is using their fine-tuned sense of smell to fulfill a chemical curiosity - not a visual one.

2. Rabbits have basically no depth perception. That’s part of the reason they hate being picked up, and why they’re so tentative about jumping on to/of off new places. The anatomical reason is the same as number 1 - the field of vision in both eyes barely overlaps, because each eye is on the opposite side of the head.

3. Rabbits can see above their heads. Imagine walking down the street and being able to take in a whole skyscraper without straining your neck. That’s basically how your rabbit looks at you from the floor.

4. Rabbits probably can’t see the color red. They seem to only have the receptors to tell blue and green apart. Great for picking out parsley - bad for, um, driving and getting dressed in the morning.

5. Rabbits can’t see fine details as well as you can. That means they mostly identify you by shape, smell, and movement. So when you stumble home on a Sunday afternoon carrying a tweed suitcase and smelling like watered-down airplane vodka, don’t be surprised when he scurries away as soon as you come over to cuddle.

This post is dedicated to a special breed of rabbit known as the Himalayan - or, in Europe, the Russian. These white rabbits with dark ears, nose, paws, and tails probably originated in neither the Himalayas nor Russia. Despite the mystery surrounding the origin of the breed, we do know these things for certain: Himalayans are typically gentle, calm, and love attention. Because of this, they’ve become popular laboratory and meat rabbits. Which makes us sad, because they make fantastic, caring companions - a fact I can vouch for personally.

Also, they’ve been genetically enhanced by generations of rabbit breeders for extra handsomeness. We’re swooning over several at SaveABunny right now:

Borat

Ilona

McDreamy, a rare lionhead Himalayan

ShyAnne

And, of course, Phoenix. Although it's hard to tell on him.

You can come visit our Himalayans in person, or donate to help us take care of them.

(Just to let you know in advance, this post is about poo. And flies.)

You know how a cat box will sometimes attract those big fat houseflies that love eating cat poo? Yummy. Anyway, rabbit boxes will sometimes attract cute little fruit flies, because rabbits are cute little vegetarians and have cute little poo. (What, they do.) Of course, fruit flies are still annoying and probably bad for the rabbits to be around, so here’s a rabbit- and environment-safe way to get rid of them:

“At the Oakland shelter, we have used fly traps near the litterboxes (but out
of rabbits’ reach) to control the fruit fly population in the rabbit room.

Here’s a recipe for a very easy, non-toxic fruit fly trap that works (this
is what we use at the shelter):

- 1/4 cup of. Vinegar
- 1/4 cup of Sugar
- Water

Put first 2 ingredients in and put enough water in a jar to make it about
1/2 full and punch a couple holes in the lid.

Let us know if it works for you!”

Extra thanks to our volunteer Anne Martin for the great advice!

Other suggestions included replacing the whole bag of litter, and making sure there’s no composting vegetable matter laying around in house that they could be laying their eggs in. (We all know it happens.)

And to make up for ickyness, here’s Itsy and Bitsy:

So you get a rabbit. He’s adorable (duh, he’s a rabbit), he does cute things every freaking day, he’s learned to use a litterbox, and you’ve got him conditioned to perk up his ears and come running every time he hears the vegetable crisper slide open. But there’s still some things that aren’t exactly perfect. Will he ever be the ideal pet you imagined when you first thought of getting a bunny? No. You can throw out that idea right now. Some things just take time and patience and effort, and of course we love our furry funny friends for all their flaws, but some things will probably never, ever, ever change.

1. Poop. It happens. Some rabbits are more polite than others, some have fantastic litterbox manners, most will keep their pee strictly in the box, but no matter what, expect to keep finding one or two little rabbit pellets rolling around somewhere forever. The good news is bunny poo is really clean. No joke, I looked at some under a microscope the other day and it looks exactly like what they eat. Actually, it’s significantly less messy than what they eat. Which brings me to number 2 -

2. Freaking hay freaking everywhere. My boyfriend found hay on the floor near his desk this morning. At work. Twenty-six miles away. The good news is if someone points out that you have a piece of it in your hair, you can finally use that line about the farmer’s daughter you thought up in college.

3. Jerkface co-workers making hasenfeffer jokes.

4. Rejection. No matter how many times people (and rabbits) tell me rabbits don’t like being picked up, I still wanna pick them up every time I see them. This has resulted in the rabbits running away every time I reach for them, even if I just wanna give them a little nose rub. If you have that rare bunny that likes being picked up - be freaking nice to that bunny.

5. Paranoia. Rabbits are experts at destroying things. Including their own digestive systems. You will learn to watch out for carpet nibbling, carpet digging, cords laying within reach, shoes laying within reach, houseplants that you thought for sure were out of reach, and bite marks on anything from scented candles (which by the way kill) to spider plants (which rabbits have no qualms about killing).

6. Being wrong. “They won’t jump up there. It’s too high.” Wrong. “They wouldn’t eat that, it’s not even food.” Wrong. “They won’t go in the cat box. It smells like predators.” Wrong. “They won’t escape from that pen. I used like four million clips.” Wrong. You get the point.

Despite these things, it’s impossible not to love our little lagomorphs - and even harder not to brag about how awesome they are and what wonderful pets they make.

By the way, my rabbits are completely awesome.

We love kitties. We love bunnies. But what happens when we want our little fearsome predators and our little gentle herbivores to coexist? Horrible, horrible things? Love at first site? General awkwardness? Cuddles?

My boyfriend Gary and I decided to try it out. He has two cats, Wallis and Tibault, and I have two rabbits, Ellis and Linda. I had received the seal of approval from both of his cats, and he had received the seal of only-mild-disapproval from my rabbits. (Which is about where they rank me.) So, we decided to move in together.

Then he confessed his fear of the blood-drenched horror that could ensue. He, like many a cat owner, had seen his fluffy friends do unspeakable things to smaller animals. I tried to reassure him by telling him I wouldn’t write off the bunnies so fast - they’ve got some sharp teeth themselves, and those back legs could probably gut an inexperienced attacker. Somehow, this only made his vision of the worst-case scenario even more ghastly.

I asked around. Marcy, the founder of SaveABunny, has cats herself, and while she doesn’t let them near the rescue buns, the cats and the rabbits she lives with seem to coexist peacefully. Several of the other SaveABunny volunteers also have cats. The all-around advice was to take it slow and keep an eye on them.

The day Ellis and Linda and I moved in, we decided to keep the bunnies in the bedroom with the door shut and allow minimal contact. Better safe than sorry. “Right?” “Right.” “Right.” “Ah, what the hell, let’s throw ‘em in together and see what happens!”

We took it one cat at a time, in the smallest room of the house - the bathroom.

If they could all speak English, it would have sounded something like this:

Ellis: “Hey, a corner. I like corners. Yay.”

Linda: “Ooh, a laundry basket. Neat! Hey what’s that?”

Enter Wallis.

Wallis: “Holy crap what are those things?!?!”

Gary: “Wallis, these are rabbits. That’s Ellis, and that’s Linda.”

Linda: “Hi! I’m a rabbit!”

Wallis: “Gary where did you find these unspeakable abominations?! And why did you bring them into my house?!”

Linda: “You smell funny.”

Wallis: “God why do they hop like that???? I can’t take it!”

Exit Wallis. Enter Tibault.

Tibault: “Hey guys, I’m here. What’s up?”

Me: “Tibs, these are my rabbits. Ellis and Linda. Bunnies, meet Tibault. We call him Tibs for short.”

Linda: “Oh hi! You smell funny too. Hey look it’s Ellis!”

Ellis: “I do indeed like corners. The darker the better.”

Linda: “Oooh, I wonder what’s behind the toilet!”

Tibs: “Bunnies you say. Hmm. I’m a cat!”

Fast forward three months. Wallis has finally stopped fleeing the room every time she sees a rabbit. Ellis approaches the cat situation like he approaches most situations, with mild disapproval. Linda, after an initially strong curiosity about the cats, now mostly ignores them. Tibs, the attention whore of the family, has had a hard time accepting the unwillingness of the rabbits to either play with him or let him lick their eyeballs, which for some reason are irresistible to him. Gary and I are trying to resist the temptation to fit just one more adorable rescued animal in our one-bedroom condo. The answer, according to both physics and the homeowner’s association, is always no.

Overall, the cat-rabbit experiment has gone significantly better than our worst expectations, and significantly better than my previous dog-rabbit experiment. We keep trying to get all the animals to cuddle together on the bed, but so far no luck. I promise I’ll post a picture if it ever happens. So far I just have these:

Tibs: "Let's play! I'll be the cat, and you be the rabbit."

Ellis: "How about you be the cat, and I'll be over here."

Ellis: "Don't. Go anywhere. Near. The eyeball."

Tibs: "Dammit. Why does he thump at me every time I try to wash his eyeballs?"

A sort of harmony. Note: Wallis is nowhere to be seen.

I got my first rabbit, Ellis, from SaveABunny one year ago this month.  We’ve had many adventures together, and some misadventures. And some boring days spent sitting around, reading and chewing on books. I’ve learned about litterboxes, bonding, finding a vet, traveling, housing, bunny-proofing, and grooming. The bunnies themselves have taught me things I’d never read about, and other SaveABunny volunteers like Mai and Carly have shared what they’ve learned, too. But even browsing a year’s worth of blog entries, and scouring the thorough information on the SaveABunny website, there are some things that have been left out.

1. Vigilance. Even when you think everything is fine, even when you give your bunnies a grooming session twice a month, even when you’ve bunny-proofed everything and pamper them and love them, things can go wrong. It’s all too easy to give them too many treats and let them get overweight, or not notice them sneaking into dangerous places you wouldn’t even have thought they would venture, like the cat box, or to accidentally give them some greens that might kill them.

2. The Internet. Obviously, if you’re reading this, you have access to the Internet, and if you’re anything like me you spend entirely too much time on it. But having a connection handy should not be taken for granted. It’s kept my bunnies out of some serious trouble more than once. Most recently, I bought some greens at the farmers market that I assumed were safe - an Asian mint with leaves that were purple on the bottom - and when I was rinsing them off to give to the bunnies, I gave them a sniff. Not minty. Wondering if they would even like it, and just generally having a suspicious feeling, I googled a description. Results: “potent respiratory toxin most commonly affecting horses and cattle.” Yummy side dish for humans, deadly for herbivores.

3. A plan. And I don’t mean, “Get rabbit, live happily ever after.” At SaveABunny, we get rabbits returned to us way more often than we’d like. Someone gets knocked up? Rabbit goes. Someone gets married? Rabbit goes. Someone starts dating a jerkoff who hates animals? Rabbit goes. Someone gets cancer and has to do chemo? Rabbit goes. Someone gets laid off and loses their house? Rabbit goes. Now obviously some of these are more valid than others, but before you get a rabbit (or any pet, really), ask yourself what your priorities are. What happens to the rabbit when the unexpected happens? If you find the love of your life and everything changes, make sure he or she fully understands rabbits and the challenges of having them from the very beginning.

4. A big rug. I really, really, really wanted to think that I could have both rabbits and hardwood floors. I love hardwood. We all love hardwood. Except bunnies. Bunnies hate hardwood. Their little feet slip and slide on it and if they’re forced to live on it they eventually develop orthopedic problems and probably sore hocks - especially if they’re larger bunnies or if you’ve fed them too many treats. I tried getting a bamboo rug with more traction, but it’s just not enough, and the hard surface did indeed result in sore hocks after a couple of months. Get a rug if you don’t have a carpet, and make sure it’s big enough for them to run on. 5′ x 8′ or larger, preferably cotton and preferably washable. And make sure they don’t eat it.

5. Sunshine. Bunnies, like people, don’t produce their own vitamin D. You can’t keep them back in a windowless laundry room. Plus, there are few things more satisfying and adorable than seeing your bunny looking out the window, waiting for you, when you get home.

Read the full press release here.

“Oh but it’s just one rabbit,” you say. “Oh but he’ll be happier in the wild running around with cottontails and jackalopes,” you say. “Oh but I’m an irresponsible jerk who didn’t bother to learn about rabbits before getting one and now I can’t keep/afford/stand my rabbit so I’m just gonna drop the little bugger off on the side of the road and forget about him,” you say.

If you’ve ever wondered why we insist on spaying and neutering all our rabbits before we adopt them out, this should give you a pretty good answer. They’re rabbits. They breed. Think about it.

We save bunnies because we like bunnies. Not because we like saving them.

In related news, we really, really need foster homes.