Anybody else remember The Croods?
ByGD
Here’s Lookin at You
I’ve never quite gotten used to keeping prey animals as pets. I keep forgetting that when they are “looking straight at you” they probably aren’t looking at you at all. You can only make eye contact with a rabbit when they give you the side eye.
ByGD
Stand Off
When we first got our rabbit, we were very worried about the cat. Although he was the smallest cat in the neighborhood, he dominated our end of the block – no other cats dared enter our yard. And he routinely dragged prey larger than himself through our cat door to finish them off in the comfort of home.
We introduced the cat to the rabbit through the safety of bars, but we didn’t need to worry. Maybe it was because the cat was getting on in years. But we had this initial standoff in which he deeply considered the options. Then he seemed to decide:
The new thing is not a cat.
The new thing is not a threat.
The new thing is not prey.
The new thing does not exist.
And from then on, he refused to acknowledge the existence of the rabbit, even when the rabbit tried to approach him.
ByGD
Lionhead Messi
When my daughter got our first pet lionhead rabbit, she was on a soccer team. She named the messy little animal after the famous soccer player, Lionel Messi. Back when we still thought rabbits could be fun, we tried to find ways to play with Lionhead Messi. The moment captured in the photo is the only time that Messi approached a soccer ball – or any other offered toy. It’s as close as he ever came to living up to the name Messi – or, for that matter, the name pet.
ByGD
Garbage Pets
Anyone who has talked to me in the last four years knows that I think getting rabbits as pets was a Big Mistake. Rabbits are a lot of work, and they don’t really act like pets. They run away from you instead of to you and don’t like to be picked up, even though they need daily brushing. They’re kind of garbage pets.
I didn’t stage this photo, though. Rabbits would never stay put if you place them for a photo. He just decided to jump in this waste basket all by himself. So I guess that’s kind of cute, at least?