Adventures in Coexisting!

[Kitty88]

So, I've told the story of how Chloe came to be my princess and I her lowly vassal elsewhere on RO, but I thought starting my own blog would help me put into perspective just how much our relationship has changed in the past ten months we've been together! I guess I should introduce myself first.
My name is Kitty. I've been informed of the irony of a Kitty owning a rabbit quite a few times. Even more ironic, in my opinion, is that I'm deathly allergic to cats if I'm around them for more than an hour. When I was younger I asked for a rAbbit for Easter one year(of course). I'd actually wanted a stuffed bunny, but when my Sicilian grandfather showed me three kits curled up in a box and announced that we would breed them, I was 100% won over. We bred rabbits for about four or five years until I wad ten or eleven. Extremely unfortunately, I later found out that we'd been breeding meat bunnies.
So, a full ten years later when I was twenty one, a neighbor who is a fellow animal lover found my poor Chloe girl in her cage (with food and water so I guess it was slightly less cruel) outside of a pet shop. I'm glad her former owners did that, really. They could have just let her go and shed be dead by now, or they could have surrendered her to a shelter and she'd probably still be looking for a forever home.
As it was, the neighbor happened to ask my nine year old brother if he would want a bunny and he said yes, and a new generation of rabbit lovers appeared in my family!
We got one picture of Chloe before Laurie could drive her down to us, and from the picture I decided she must be a mini Rex. Just to let you know how wrong I turned out to be, she turned out to be a full sized Satin. XD
So the day our 'little' bunny arrived, we found out that
A) our 'dwarf' was a full nine pounds of bunny
B) Fat Al, as she was introduced to us, was actually a lady bun
C) her cage was most definitely on the tiny side.
I learned something else that day on my own, too. The second I opened the door to her cage, she came right over and let me pick her up and snuggle with her for a solid four or five minutes, and she was mine. I literally felt a stamp hit my heart and she's owned it ever since.

I will continue our story later.

 

[Kitty88]

I think it's time for a few pictures.

This is the Byoootiful Ms. Chloe! Can't you see why I can't resist her face?

Big bunny.

Waaaay too tiny cage!

Chloe and her mama.

And Chloe with my little brother, who's pretty awesome with her for only being nine.

For the record, Chloe is not my first rescue. She has a big brother, a beagle, whom I rescued when I was....seventeen??? Lordabee, the years go by quick.

This is my handsome lil guy, Aiden.

Sibling love! This was actually the first time they met.

 

[kirbyultra]

Oh my gosh Chloe is so cute! I love black buns! She's got a lovely shiny coat. I am so glad she found you. Poor Fat Al wouldve been out of luck otherwise! LOL looking forward to hearing more and seeing more lovely pics!

 

[Kitty88]

I've been wanting to say that Chloe and Kirby look so much alike! Chloe only has stray white furs though, you can't really tell she isn't solid from pics. I've been following Kirby and Penny's story, I hope the rest of their bonding goes well! Also, Toby is such a cutie! Chloe's gotcha day is fast approaching. She gets spoiled so much I don't know how I'm gonna outdo myself that day. XD

 

[Kitty88]

I've been doing such a good job of talking Chloe up as my perfectly behaved princess that I don't think I've really done her justice yet. Chloe is my first house rabbit, which is a big deal to me, at least. When we bred rabbits, they were all outdoor bunnies and I never really got to know them as well as you get to know a rabbit that lives in your room. So the past ten months have brought lots of lessons on just how mischievous rabbits can be. Here are a few;

- Lesson One: Rabbits like pleather?? ∆ˆøπ£
Scratch that.
- Lesson One: Do not attempt to type any time of forum post while sitting with a rabbit on your lap. She WILL eventually decide that the desktop is infinitely more entertaining than your lap and hop across the keyboard, leaving you with four or five symbols typed that you weren't aware could be made on a computer.

- Lesson Two: NEVER leave your purse, jeans, boots, phone charger, or anything else you've become attached to in your rabbits line of chew. Even if you watch her like a hawk when you let her out, your little brother will take her out when no one is there to supervise and she. will. destroy.

- Lesson Three: Don't make too many assumptions about how your pets will interact, even if they are different species. Heck, even if one of them was technically bred to hunt the other. One will p*ss the other off and they'll end up getting their tail bit in retribution. It's rarely the pet you thought would get bit.

- Lesson Four: If your bunny is on the third floor of her cage, and you are cleaning the bottom floor of her cage, and your bunny doesn't happen to particularly LIKE having her cage cleaned, you should really make sure her heavy ceramic bowl isn't up there with her. Especially if she's known for throwing things.

- Lesson Five: The more you think about and spend on a toy, the less your rabbit will like it.

- Lesson Six: People do NOT expect to see a bunny stick her head out of a purse carrier. (you know, like those mini chihuahua carriers? only soooo much cuter for having a bunny in it)

- Lesson Seven: (re. Lesson Six) If you are walking around your neighborhood with your bunny in a dog carrier because she likes going for walks, don't talk to her through the front screen of the bag. People can't see that there's an animal in there....and the bag kinda just looks like a goofy purse....just try to refrain from attempting to make eye contact with your bun.

- Lesson Eight: When you open the door to a Princess' cage and lie down on the floor to spend some bonding time with her, she WILL NOT HESITATE to jump right up onto your skull in order to sprint down your back while you're down and escape into the house.

- Lesson Nine: Bunnies nip each other when someone does something to annoy someone else. Apparently, I irritate my fuzzy girl just by sitting next to her sometimes. Lesson being, nips to the midriff HURT LIKE A MOTHER.

- Lesson Ten: When you're in the middle of a massive cuddle session with your bun and you're petting her and she flops out full length, relaxed as a bunny could be, you totally understand the phrase "I'm so happy I could bust" because the cuteness overload really does make you just want to explode.

- Lesson Eleven: HOUSE BUNNIES RULE THE ROOST AND THEIR HUMANS LIKE IT THAT WAY.

Also, bunny tushies are the cutest. :bunnybutt:

 

[kirbyultra]

Yeah Kirby is a mini satin mix. I've met some other mini satins and they all look quite similar when they are black. Little white fur or markings. But I love the shiny fur 9 lbs is much bigger than my Kirby though, who's only 5-6 lbs

 

[Jessyka]

Bayou loves pleather. I don't have a single purse that hasn't been chewed on.

 

[Kitty88]

I love finding out that Chloe's bad habbits are actually normal bunny quirks!

And yeah, there's NOTHING mini about my Chloe monster. I dubbed her a bushel of love instead of a bundle. She's quite literally bigger than my friend's newborn, in weight and size.

 

[jcottonl02]

Aww your animals are sooo cute!

Dwarf :shhhh: lol.

Benji is (I think!) a dwarf, being about 4 1/2 pounds (or maybe just on the borderline), and he's even smaller than he looked because he's soooo fluffy , but Pippin can't be a dwarf. He is 5 1/2 pounds and really quite big, and long, with a long face and big ears. They were both said to be dwarfs- Pippin was TINY when I got him, but then he grew and grew!!! But I love him being a big squishy bunny.

Loving yours pics- more!!!

Jen

 

[Kitty88]

See, Chloe being monstrously big is actually REALLY REALLY ironic, because my handsome guy Aiden is literally a midget. Beagles come in two shoulder heights, fifteen and thirteen inches, well, show beagles do anyway, and Aiden is a full eleven and a half. Which I thought was really odd, until I found out that Achondroplasia (dwarfism) actually exists in beagles.

I have a midget for a dog, and a WNBA prospect for a bunny.

 

[Kitty88]

So, precious Chloe woke me up this morning at the hellish hour of five fifteen, looking like a jackalope with her mouth completely through the bars, teeth overlapped on the outside of the cage, just yanking as hard as she could. So I made my Cesar Milan sound, tsst, and she immediately stopped and looked up at me out of the corner of her eye. Chloe doesn't like being reprimanded. I knew I was in for it later on, but I was just too tired to care, Plus, despite my 22 birthday looming five days away, I sleep on a top bunk! So even if she did manage to bust out of her cage and come looking for my jugular, she wasn't getting me.

I wake up at nine fifteen, try to shake the grogginess from my face, roll over....glance down at her cage in the corner....and crazy is sitting on the top level in her evil bunny pose, just grilling me. This, of course, spooks any remaining sleepiness out of me quickly, and I climb down to try to make amends. She meets me on the first floor of her condo, I open her door.....and she makes a mad dash for my nine year old brothers crocs.

I have never seen her carry anything. She picks things up and throws them, but I've never seen her move anything more than a few inches. Well guess what, everybody?! There's a first time for everything!

So Chloe grabs my brother's croc, (I hate those shoes with a passion, but my brother loves them equally passionately, for whatever reason) turns around, and sprints into the far corner of her cage, where I can hear her start to chew.

I don't know if I've fully explained this, but Chloe is a Grade A chewer. Other bunnies make cute little scalloped edges chew marks on things. Chloe leaves great gaping holes and chews the zipper off your favorite boots and chews the button hole off of your best fitting pair of jeans. -.-

So I dive into Chloe's cage. Literally. I had to shove myself over her hugenormous litter tray (bottom of her old cage) and wiggle in order to reach her. I reach out and grasp the shoe, and gently tug as I wiggle out of the cage backwards. In my mind, she let go of the shoe the second I grabbed it. In actuality, my rabbit is holding the shoe in a death grip and I am slowly pulling her out of the cage with me. So I look down and realize this, finally, and start trying to get the shoe away from her. I'm now making Cesar noises like it's going out of style and tapping her on the nose, like you'd tap a dog's nose to get it to drop something.

Surprise surprise, it works! I stand tall with the shoe held over my head! I have dominated my nine pound rabbit! I am human, no rabbit can overpower or outsmart-SHE HAS MY ONE OF MY FAVORITE SHOES IN HER MOUTH!

I let out an anguished cry at her trickery and lunge to save my flats. She absolutely refuses to let go, and we play tug of war with my shoe for a minute. I mean, I'm not going to rip it away from her. I like my shoes, but I like having a bunny with teeth too.

Wait a second, I'll just pick her up! She'll let go of it then, albeit in anger! So I gracefully stick my hand under her booty and scoop her up. In my defense, she DID let go of my shoe.

Chloe is most definitely not appreciative of my holding her. She lets me know this by staying verrrry verrrrrrrry still, and then flipping herself around. I'm not thinking of my safety at this point. Silly rabbit owner.

I'm actually still holding my shoe. Chloe appears to be chilling out in my arms, so I take a look at it and affirm that I got it before any chew marks were made, and a little bunny spit never hurt anybody. Chloe readjusts herself so that her head is in the crook of my elbow. I am still gloating about the safety of the two shoes. Chloe smells the sweet aromas of revenge and victory. She chomps down on my inner elbow. I let out an earth shattering shriek that was so high pitched I literally didn't hear myself begin to scream. I'm still holding her though! I'm responsible! Until she scoots her butt around so that she's head down. I actually look down to see what she's doing. Silly, silly rabbit owner.

Well, she kicked me in the face. She basically hit me with a bunny feet uppercut. I was looking up at the ceiling for a second.

After I recover from the shock of being suckerpunched by a rabbit, I look down and see her slowly hop back into her cage and DBF in the corner.

I think my rabbit's got it out for me.

 

[hln917]

Too bad you didn't capture all this on video! Would have made comedy of the year! Chloe is so adorable even with that rabbittude of hers.:biggrin2:

 

[hln917]

Kitty88 wrote:

So, a full ten years later when I was twenty one, a neighbor who is a fellow animal lover found my poor Chloe girl in her cage (with food and water so I guess it was slightly less cruel) outside of a pet shop. I'm glad her former owners did that, really. They could have just let her go and shed be dead by now, or they could have surrendered her to a shelter and she'd probably still be looking for a forever home.

I was mad at Baci's former owner for dumping him with a broken foot outside the vet's door. However now I'm glad they did. My gain is their loss!

 

[Kitty88]

Helen- I was really angry that someone would leave a pet that had obviously been well cared for outside a petshop like they did. I mean, they had to have invested time and money in her, how could they just abandon her like that? Then I realized she totally lucked out. Black bunnies apparently have a really hard time getting adopted, and she now has a huge cage, tons of toys, outside playtime every day....I'm REALLY glad whoever left her there did what they did.

However, if I had adopted her from a shelter and found out that someone had abandoned her with a broken foot, I'd probably be furious with her former owner. poor Baci. At least they left him at a vet's office. I'd still want to hunt em down though.

 

[Kitty88]

Videos!

Also, I built Chloe an exercise pen for outside playtime yesterday, so hopefully tomorrow I'll have pics of her enjoying it!


Enjoying a strawberry. I didn't realize I had my music that loud when I was filming her, by the way.


Chloe doing her DBF. And YUCK, I'm so glad she's in her big cage now! That thing seems tinier and tinier the longer she's in her new cage.


And Chloe just being plain cute. I kinda love the image of her cuteness with Sickman playing in the background. XD


Also, I woke up this morning to the BIGGEST mess I have ever seen her make. I didn't even think she had that much hay up there.

A general view of the damage.

Gotta love that nose, even when she's being a terror.
[

Ground Zero.

Can I help you in some way?

What exactly is this thing, anyway...

Oh yeah, in case you were wondering how I made such a big mess, watch me eat my hay strand by strand with my head sticking over the edge of my balcony!

And now you've been dismissed. Kindly remove yourself from my presence.

 

[kirbyultra]

Chloe doesn't look 9lbs at all in the DBF!

 

[Kitty88]

She's very svelte! She practices portion control. One strawberry at a time. XD

 

[hln917]

Kitty88 wrote:

However, if I had adopted her from a shelter and found out that someone had abandoned her with a broken foot, I'd probably be furious with her former owner. poor Baci. At least they left him at a vet's office. I'd still want to hunt em down though.

Oh trust me~when we first bought him home and he was trying to hop, I was in tears and cursing his previous owners. I swore if I ever found out who did it, I was sending hubby after them and see how they like to have a permanent broken foot! Then the first night he slept in his potty box b/c he was scared, that broke my heart also. However he is the happiest, spoiled rabbit now. It still b/l it was fate which bought him to us. You can hardly tell his foot was ever broken by the way he does his Bunny Nascar!

 

[Kitty88]

Aweh! I'm so glad Baci has such great parents.

stories like these make me wish there was a rabbit shelter near me that I could volunteer at.

 

[kirbyultra]

There is one in east Harlem. I volunteer with the rescue that works with that shelter.