Like Alvin, Scout was adopted from the House Rabbit Society. She is about five years old and therefore the youngest of our pets. She was found with the rest of her litter abandoned at a Girl Scout Camp. Domesticated rabbits cannot survive in the wild, so HRS representatives rounded them up. The rest of Scout�s siblings went to the local Humane Society. HRS thought that Scout would be difficult to place and may be put down, so they took her in. Some interesting and little known facts about bunnies: 1. Rabbits are social creatures and can form very strong bonds with other rabbits. The strength of their bond is really remarkable. Separating a bonded pair can be harmful. When one half of a bonded pair dies, the health of the living pet often declines as well. When one bunny has a vet appointment, it is generally recommended that you take both of them, even if the other just sits in the cage with her. Stress is hard on rabbits, and keeping bonded pairs together reduces their stress. 2. At the same time, rabbits are also very territorial. Forcing two rabbits that are not bonded to each other to share space is often deadly. It is not uncommon for a rabbit to kill its cage mate if they were not properly bonded. I won�t bore you with the details of the entire bonding process, but if you would like more information about how this works, visit here. We brought Scout home in the summer of 2003 to be a companion to Alvin. Alvin had been with us for almost a year at the time. We began noticing patchy hair loss on him where it appeared to be chewed off. Our vet thought that it was likely anxiety. Alvin was a free roaming bunny in our house (no cage) and was trying - unsuccessfully - to bond with one of our cats, Romey. We discussed this with our vet and agreed that this may be the source of his anxiety and that he may do well with a companion. When we contacted HRS, they helped match us with Scout, who had previously been well-bonded with two of her siblings. Scout is not particularly pretty or nice. She weighs over eight pounds, which makes her more than twice the size of Alvin and even bigger than our cat, Lulu. She hates the cats, chews on electrical cords and furniture, digs the carpet, and stomps on the floor in irritation whenever J or I come into her territory. Because of her behaviors, we have had to keep both bunnies in a gated off area for their own protection. It turns out Alvin�s fur chewing was due to allergies/itchy dry skin, not anxiety. It may seem like Alvin is worse off now since he no longer has free run of the house, but I do think he is happier. For all Scout�s disgust for the rest of the family, she adores Alvin and he loves her back. Oh, and although the feeling is clearly not reciprocated, J and I like her too :)

Alvin is seven years old and was adopted from the House Rabbit Society in 2002. He is half lop and tends to have one ear up and the other down. He weighs just 3.5 lbs. He is outrageously cute and charming and everyone loves him. He is really more like a cat than a rabbit. He is curious and friendly, and likes to greet new people. He has no fear of people or other animals. Since he was litterbox trained, once the cats had accepted him as a member of the household he had run of the house and did great with it. Like Lulu, he doesn�t like to be picked up but will often come sit next to you on the couch looking for some petting and love. Alvin is not a chewer, which is good for our furniture and cords but bad for his teeth. He also has a terrible underbite. Rabbit teeth always grow (like beaver teeth) but normally if they have good jaw alignment and chew wood and roughage they naturally keep them filed down. Alvin does not chew, and this combined with his underbite has really wreaked havoc on the inside of his mouth. If left untreated his teeth will continue to grow and actually curl inward to the point that he cannot eat. Therefore he has to go to the vet 3-4 times a year to have his teeth filed down with a Dremel tool � literally. If they get too long, they have to be clipped. The poor little guy is quite a trooper though! He is an amazing little bunny and a great example of how good (if high maintenance) a pet bunnies can be.

Well, the list of places we can use to shop for pet supplies just got shorter. PetSmart, who had previously been lauded for its partnership with the House Rabbit Society to help find homes for rescued bunnies, has decided to sell rabbits in some of its stores. While PetSmart does continue to support animal charities and rescue groups like HRS, we feel that any store selling pets is promoting the commercial pet mill industry, and anyone who sells animals for profit while others of their species are being euthanized for a lack of homes is directly responsible for those deaths.

So, if you are like-minded, I hope you will also stop shopping at the PetSmart Stores. Alvin and Scout hope you will too.

The bunny area was looking pretty ragged, so this afternoon I put an hour or so into rehabbing it and must say I am quite pleased with the results. I think Alvin and Scout like it too! Since we haven’t shown off the bunny lair before, I thought now was a good time to do so:

1. Frame: We use two “puppy pens” (also known as exercise pens) latched together for the frame. We initially had just one, but the space really wasn’t big enough for them. Who can binky in a 4x4 space?
2. Base: Underneath, (on top of the carpet of our finished basement) we lay rubber matting - the heavy duty mats generally used for horse pens. These are great because they are easy to clean and nothing is getting through them. On top of the matting, we usually lay carpet fragments (we are using one large 6x8 fragment here) but in the past we have also used the untreated woven mats you can purchase by the foot at World Market. We will still give the buns the woven mats occasionally to play with, but our Scout is such an avid chewer that the mats never lasted very long to be cost effective. They don’t chew the regular carpet, and we can just cut it up if any accidents happen that stink it up.
3. Tunnel: this is a cement forming tube with two small pieces of wood screwed to the bottom to keep it from rolling.
4. Shelter: the top of an enclosed cat litter box.
5. Litter Box: we just purchased a Rubbermaid storage bin to use for this purpose. We had been using a standard litter box, but our big girl seemed to be “missing” a lot. Hopefully she can keep her tush in this box a little better. We generally line the box with newspaper, put in a bit of “Yesterday’s News” litter for absorption, then fill the rest with timothy hay. They need fresh hay every day.

We also keep some unfinished wood and baskets for the buns to chew on and play with. Scout likes to “rearrange” the pen (pick these things up with her teeth and then throw them back over her head).

We also try to let them out as often as possible, but they must be supervised.

I added a bunch of pics of the animals to the mobile pics section of the website. These were taken using my phone so they're a bit blurry... no new pics of Alvin, Scout, or Lulu this time... I'll be taking some pics of the new set up we have for the buns as we more than doubled their living area. We added another pen and bought another horse mat... Alvin now has enough room to run around and do binkies whenever he wants :)

I think he wants to know if I have any baby carrots left...