Friday Foster – Willa
Oy. It’s been a while since I’ve featured a Friday Foster rabbit… I think it’s about time I resurrected that category.
To recap (even though the majority of my readers are also IHRS volunteers), I volunteer as a foster home for domestic rabbits in need of rescue. Over the last 7 or 8 years I’ve lived with more rabbits than I can count, all of them with very different personalities and idiosyncracies. Anyone who thinks rabbits are just livestock animals needs to come and stay with me for a while… of course, I don’t think any animals are just livestock animals, but that’s a post for another day.
Let me introduce you to one of my current foster rabbits… this is Willa.
We received a voicemail at the beginning of May from some concerned members indicating that there was a domestic rabbit at a local animal shelter, and could we help? At the time we were trying to work out how many rabbits we could take to help the Missouri HRS chapter with a confiscation case they were working with, but I had room, and our commitment has always been to local rabbits first.
I picked Willa up from the shelter on May 22, not knowing what to expect. All of the shelter staff I had spoken to kept telling me what a nasty bunny she was… I imagine that if I were stuck in a tiny cage surrounded by predators, I’d probably soil myself, too. At any rate, they took my carrier back to the kennel area, and what they brought out was this beautiful, vibrant, lively Harlequin rabbit. I brought her home and set her up in a condo with a litter box full of hay, gave her some toys, a water crock, and a food bowl, and left her to settle in. Do you know, over the next 24 hours she did not leave a single pootie outside her litter box? Not ONE. So much for the “nasty” bunny.
Willa is a sweet girl, and she’ll make someone a wonderful companion. She really doesn’t like hands reaching into her condo – she tends to cower toward the back, although she’s getting better about it each time I have to lift her out and put her back in. She is not shy about letting you know that her food bowl is empty – she either fills it with her toys, or turns it upside down. She loves to be petted once she gets over the initial worry about what those hands might do, and she especially loves treats.
My hope for Willa – and for all of our foster rabbits, really – is that she is able to find a home with people who will love her and respect her for being a rabbit. So many potential adopters seem to have such high expectations – I think it’s because they have no or very little experience with rabbits, but many people don’t understand that rabbits are not like dogs or cats. Rabbits make excellent companion animals, but not all homes are the ideal homes. The goal, I guess, is to find forever homes.
If you’re interested in adopting Willa, or any of our other adoptable rabbits, please visit our website at www.indianahrs.org.
New addition
This…
is Moses!
I finalized his adoption with Indy Great Pyrenees Rescue today, and couldn’t be happier. He’s really sweet, and has been such a good boy since I got him home. He fell asleep on the ride home – I had to take a detour because of a road closure I didn’t expect, so it took almost an hour – and as he’d breathe out, his cheeks would puff out, too. It was too cute! I’m very excited to have him home with me, and can’t wait to write about our adventures.
One year
This is Angus. He was my heart bunny, the bunny love o’ my life. Today is the one-year anniversary of his passing, so I thought I’d write a little about him.
Angus was “rescued” by a well-meaning samaritan. He was housed in a feed trough at a local pet store/nightmare, and because he was missing some fur over his shoulders, she thought he had mites. She bullied the manager into giving the rabbit to her, but she wasn’t going to be able to keep him. At the time, there was an email list for local HRS members, and she posted there looking for a home for him. I had always wanted a rabbit, and had moved into an apartment earlier that year, and decided that it was the right time.
Angus was the cutest thing I’d ever seen. He was about four months old when I brought him home in October 1999, and he was actually quite healthy… just overgroomed by his litter mates. He was bouncy and fun, very entertaining, in those early days. I did everything I could to make his life happy – he had tons of toys, I built him a ginormous cage, fed him salads that I weighed (HRS recommends 8 oz. of greens per 6 lbs. of rabbit – I just wanted to make sure he was getting enough!), and bought him the best hay and pellets money could buy. I even adopted a friend for him – Benny – though he and Benny weren’t interested in being roomies. We went through lots of things together… 2 different apartments, and finally, a house; several different cages; MANY new bunnies coming in and out; emergency, life-saving surgeries and all of the nursing that came with that. He was the undisputed king of the bunny room, and knew that I belonged to him.
Angus was the bunny that started everything for me – I became involved in rabbit rescue the next year, and started my fostering “career”. I can’t imagine living without a rabbit now – there’s something about earning the complete trust of a prey animal that makes the relationship seem more special. Angus’ passing left an Angus-sized hole in my heart that no other bunny could ever completely fill, though they certainly do ease the ache. I miss him every day, and I hope he enjoyed our almost-nine-years together as much as I did.
Love you, sunshine boy.
