Millie, Henrietta, Olaf

I was hoping to share our weekend in Cape May before posting about the new bunnies, but the word got out and I was slow.

Meet (Left to Right) Millie, Henrietta, and Olaf.

We’ve had them for three weeks now, and they are starting to settle it. This picture makes them look huge and cranky.  In reality, they are small as cute and sweet.  Olaf is the smallest of the three, and the reason we ended up with this bunch. Just after Derby died, Art showed me a picture of Olaf.  He as still really, really young.  Super tiny and oh, so cute.  It really made me smile.  The adoption listing said he was still too young to adopt, so I figured by the time he was ready — we might me.  Well, it turned out the listing had been up for a bit, and he just needed to be neutered and then he’d be ready.

Art and I decided to go meet Olaf and his siblings.  No commitments, just a go-see.

Yeah.  Right.

The second we laid eyes on Olaf, we knew he’d be coming home with us. Then the question was — which sibling?  His brother Robin was a sweety, but two boys can be difficult.  We had seen a picture of Henrietta online too, so I started to play with her a bit.  Art went outside to see the bunnies that were getting to play in the grass.  Turns out Olaf had another sister, and Art was rather smitten with her.

That’s how we ended up with all three.  I liked Henrietta and Art like Olaf. Since they were about 1.5lbs each, we figured all together they’d make up a really fat version of Derby.  Heck, even if they managed to grow to 2lbs each –they’d still be less than a Paisley.

We’ve never had baby bunnies before.  These guys are nine months old.  I  supposed that’s more like adolescent bunnies, though. All our others were probably at least 2 years old when we adopted them.  We really have no idea how old Paisley, Dora, or Petunia were.

Now we’re adjusting to things like litter box training.  I’m impatient, because Derby had the best litter box manners EVER.  I think they are starting to get the hang of things.  At least they are super affectionate.  It took months (okay maybe a month) for Dora and Paisley to warm up to us fully.

So welcome the new bunnies.  For lots more pictures of their cuteness, check out Flickr.

]]> http://www.artandcarly.com/critters/bunnies/welcome-the-new-trio/feed/ 0 http://www.artandcarly.com/critters/bunnies/goodbye-derby-doo/ http://www.artandcarly.com/critters/bunnies/goodbye-derby-doo/#comments Fri, 09 Apr 2010 10:55:25 +0000 carly http://www.artandcarly.com/?p=147

Derby had surgery last week. It was pretty traumatic all around. I’m [Carly] not a big believer in expensive, painful procedures on pets. It’s not fair to them or us. How do you explain what’s happening to a pet? But after talking to the Bunny Doc, Art and I decided that we should go ahead with Derby’s surgery. The choice really was that or put him to sleep in the very near future. The surgery seemed relatively simple, and the vet thought he’d easily have another 3-5 years of very high quality life after. Considering the recovery time was really only about 2 weeks at the most — it seemed like a natural choice.

Well, Derby decided to complicate things. The bladder stone, which they double checked just before the x-ray, disappeared when they opened him up. They had to do a mid-surgery x-ray to find the damn thing.

Somehow, it had shrunk just enough to escape into his urethra. According to the Bunny Docs — this just doesn’t happen. They had to perform a rare “marsupialization” procedure, which you really don’t want me to explain. Needless to say this rather complicated his surgery and made everyone nervous about the outcome.

After 2 days at the Vet, Derby came home. You’d barely know he’d had surgery. Art is having to give him several types of drugs every day, and we’re still trying to get some “critical care” into him because he lost a lot of weight in the days before his surgery. But, his appetite is rapidly returning and so far, things are going really well.

That’s good. I’d really disapprove of losing Derby just yet.

Our friend Casey had a little bit of angora left over from a knitting project, so she made us a new bunny out of it.  Derby has been getting to know his new little friend and, as you can see, seem to be getting along rather well.  He won’t share his frozen water bottle with the little blue guy yet — but I think that’s okay. 

Technorati Tags: rabbits, house rabbits, bunnies, fun

We’ve been trying to teach Derby to fetch a tennis ball. So far, he runs to ball, nudges it a bit, then runs back to us for a bit of banana chip.

Now, given his recent foray into the yard…
I realized that he has the potential to be the first ball bun at Wimbledon! With that new retractable roof, he would have protection from hawks.  He could keep the lawn trimmed and fertilized, all while being cute and/or disapproving. (Come to think of it, he’d make a great umpire, too)

We thought that we were all set for today’s switch to Digital television. We bought a new digital flat-screen TV last winter, but I figured out just this week that we might not have the right antenna.

The DTV signals broadcast at higher frequencies; almost all of them are in the Ultra High Frequency (UHF) range. The traditional Rabbit Ear aerials pick up the Very High Frequency signals (VHF), which means that they will be useless in our area. So I ordered a brand spanking new DTV, UHF “Donut” antenna; when it arrives we’ll hook it up and stick the Rabbit Ears in the closet for now.

Until then, we will just have to manage (such privation!).

Thanks to Government regulators, we can not just throw the old antenna away.  A little-known requirement buried in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (S.652) mandates that all House Rabbit owners possess at least one set of “functional dipole Very High Frequency (VHF) antennae” (Rabbit Ears) at all times; even if they are not hooked up and even if the rabbit owner(s) has/have a subscription for cable television.

The rule is sometimes known as “The Thumper Amendment”.

No provision was made for enforcement, though,  nor did the regulation make any mention of potential sanctions for violators.

Still, just to be safe, and for the sake of our bunny, we’ll keep the old one for now.

January 27th was Derby’s day on the CuteOverload.com calendar! We were all very excited. Well, Art and I were. Derby seems to be characteristically disapproving.

Technorati Tags: disapproving, derby, cinnamon, cute, cuteoverload

We lost Ms. Petunia.  She had been doing well, even with the head tilt.  She was active and eating.  The picture below was taken just yesterday.   She was fine all day and then late last night she took a sudden turn.  She let me hold her on my lap for quite a while, and I’ve learned that’s how my bunnies say goodbye.  I left her in the litterbox around midnight, with something clearly wrong, and we found her this morning.

Goodbye sweet Ms. Petunia.  Thanks for sharing some of your time with us.

мебели

Technorati Tags: house rabbits, bunny, bunnies, farewell

Our Petunia is fighting a terrible bunny condition called head tilt. She looks so cute in this picture, taken the first couple of days. Her condition has stabilized and we have high hopes she’ll pull through and recover entirely. I’m looking forward to her head being upright where it belongs again.

But the really amazing thing, has been the support of the Bunny Lovers Unite (BLU) community on Flickr. These amazing people have been providing support and advice beyond imagination. They even prod us for updates if we don’t provide them every couple of days!

We’ve been posting the updates on Petunia’s recovery on BLU, and you can follow them there too.

Technorati Tags: head tilt, petunia, house rabbit, rabbits

Derby has been a little shocked at all the attention he’s been receiving! Now strangers are even blogging about his photographs. He’s like us to reassure everyone that it’s not going to his head…

oh wait…. he’s demanding carrots. Must run.

Technorati Tags: bunnies, house rabbits, cute overload, derby