Animagic

No, it’s nothing to do with animation, simply animals.

I have some bad news to report, I am what is considered a rabbit killer.

A couple of weeks back, at the end of one of the weekday evenings, I was putting Leo the rabbit back in his cage. As I lowered him into the door of the cage, he decided he would try and buck. So, I am holding onto this giant (yes GIANT), lop-eared rabbit as he tries to free himself and plummet to the floor below.

I try to release him as close to the floor as I can, but he takes one leap as I open my arms to release him and jumps onto the floor. I exclaim to Katie about the fact he will seriously hurt himself one day and watch as Leo promptly shifts into his cage and sits in the corner.

The next morning, we awake and come downstairs for breakfast. Leo is in the same position as he was the previous night, something was wrong. Katie opens the cage door and Leo attempts to jump out, except he has no control over his front legs, the fall must have caused more damage than we thought. It seemed that when Leo was attempting to get out of my arms, he pushed with such force that he overcompensated and felt the full impact on his neck. He held on for a couple more minutes, until he could no more.

As you can imagine, I was feeling plenty of guilt for what happened, as much I wasn’t a massive fan of rabbits, I certainly am not one for killing them. The problem with Leo was that he was such a big rabbit, I was inexperienced in transporting them and with his determination to get out of my arms as I was lowering him into his cage, he contributed to his own downfall.

That evening I dug a huge hole in the garden and made sure he was deep enough for the foxes to not take an interest, meanwhile Katie looked at other rabbits to stop her little heart from breaking.

Fast Forward 2 Weeks

I get a text message from Katie telling me that outside her work, someone had left a huge black bag with strange noises coming from it. A co-worker looks inside, only to find that some evil b*stard has thrown six kittens, four baby rabbits and a dead rabbit mother into it.

They bring the bag indoors and place the animals in warmer surroundings but slowly over the day the kittens all slip away. By half past four there is only one rabbit left. The RSPCA tell them they can’t do anything with it, so guess what happens next?!

Everybody, meet Bob.

After bringing him home, terrified and with very little chances of lasting the night, he was put into Leo’s old cage and given food, water and a warm place to sleep.

What did the plucky fellow do? Yeah, he survived. That rabbit has guts. He is now firmly ensconced in the pecking order between me and the cats.