When I was a little girl I had a pet rabbit. His name was Smokey. My dad built a rabbit hutch in the backyard and every day after school I would go to the hutch to see Smokey and he would hop around with excitement when he saw me coming. I would bring him inside and he would sit with me and watch tv.
One day, after my dad trimmed some hedges, I thought about how much Smokey would enjoy the treat of a few leaves. I got a wheel barrow, filled with every last leaf and limb, and took it to Smokey stuffing his cage to the point that he would have to eat his way out. What a treat! The next day when I came home from school and took my usual trip to the backyard I noticed that Smokey wasn't hopping around with excitement. He wasn't moving at all. Perhaps he's napping? The closer I get I call his name and nothing happens. My rabbit was dead. I had poisoned him with hedge trimmings and love.
I was so upset when Smokey died that I never wanted another pet again. It would obviously not end well. It took 20 years for me to get over the trauma of killing Smokey, but I finally decided I should get a pet. I didn't really want a dog or cat, and after some research I decided that I should get another rabbit. What better way to build my confidence than to get one of the most difficult animals to take care of? I found a rabbit rescue society and was surprised at how many people have indoor rabbits. They are actually quite passionate about it I would find out. I had to fill out paperwork and go through an interview process and was told that most of the time they don't send someone home with a rabbit on their first meeting, but they had a good feeling about me. I didn't tell them about Smokey so they had no reason to doubt my abilities. They packed my car full of hay, a pen and TWO rabbits. One, a flemish giant, called Gigantor (he was enormous and would grow to be the size of a medium size dog but looked just like Thumper, from Bambi) and another smaller one that I named Belina. They were both cute and sweet and what I thought would be my perfect pets. I had lost my mind. I set them up in the sun room of my one bedroom apartment with plenty of hay and water and wondered what in the world I was thinking.
Rabbits poop, a lot. All they do is eat and poop. I'm a bit of neat freak, so I was constantly sweeping up poop and hay and also cleaning up urine. Gigantor would jump in the air and spin around and pee, spraying it every where. The walls, the carpet, the curtains and poor little Belina. Nothing was safe. It also turns out that there is a protein in rabbit urine that becomes airborne and can cause allergies. Who knew? Turns out I was one of the lucky ones with such an allergy. The same weekend I adopted them Atlanta went through a crazy snow storm and the city was shut down for a week. I couldn't get out of my apartment if I wanted to. So, I was stuck with 2 rabbits, a bale of hay and a constant asthma attack.
I didn't want to fail at my attempt of being a pet owner but I wanted to be able to breathe. I reasoned that if I took the giant rabbit back that there wouldn't be urine sprayed around and maybe that would help bring the allergy under control. I told the rescue group that 2 rabbits were too much and I needed to bring him back and after some of the roads thawed a little bit I was able to return him. Belina had grown attached to him, however. She turned into a mean psycho rabbit after he left. Rabbits thump their back legs when they feel threatened or when they are mad. Belina was constantly thumping that back leg (not a quiet thing) and avoiding me when I came close to her. I still couldn't breathe in my own home and she hated me, so I had to return her too.
I had them a total of 7 days. It took me 2 days to clean up the damage. I had failed again, but I didn't kill them. That was progress in my book.
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