It's been a busy few weeks, and it was definitely fun having Wendell the Wandering Wabbit around. All good things must come to an end, though, and after a goodbye kiss from Natasha, Wendell is in his box and ready to head off in tomorrow morning's mail.
Natasha has been really odd since I got back from visiting friends last night. I know she's pathologically afraid of dogs, and the slightest smell of a dog will send her into a panic, so I'm usually very careful to wash my hands after I pet a dog. My friends' dog was a very friendly yellow Lab who was all over me, and I guess he transferred more smell than I knew. He may have laid down on my jacket at some point, too.
Anyway, as soon as I got home and let Natasha out of her cage she streaked into my bedroom and under the bed and started thumping. I washed my hands in mechanic's solvent, which usually works, and called her out for a treat. She inched over to me, took one sniff, thumped, and ran under the bed again. I changed my clothes completely, but that didn't help much. All evening she would hop into the living room, slowly crawl over to the closet with her neck craned out in front, then run back to the bedroom. Finally, I put my coat in the dryer to air out, and put my computer bag in the back room to remove as much of the smell as possible. It helped a little, but she was still very skittish. More than once during the night she woke me up by thumping, and this morning I had to call her a lot to get her to come to breakfast - and then she had to be coaxed into her cage to eat. She kept inching up to the cage, then backing off. I really don't see what was bothering her, since nothing in the cage had been near anything which had been in contact with the dog. She did eat, eventually, but went back under my bed and thumped again.
Finally, I heard her come into the computer room where I was getting Wendell's stuff ready to ship. She came when called, and let me give her nose pets, to her evident satisfaction.
She then kissed my hand, so I figured that everything was finally well in a bunny's world.
Now, she's under my bed thumping again.
Rabbits...
