Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Skippy The Rabbit update

Well, Skippy has moved right in, and has been making himself at home. The people at the animal shelter said he had lots of personality, and they were spot on. He's a really happy, curious, friendly, and generally fired-up rabbit. Pete has been teaching him the local customs - where to hang out, how to deal with food treats, etc. He tears around the deck doing multiple happy-hops, and will even roll over on his back when he's on break. I think he likes it here.


It took Petey only a couple days to get used to his high-energy ways, and now they are a nicely bonded pair, as you can see in the photos. That was fast!
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Left: Skippy _________ Right: Pete
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We like to let the rabbits hop around the back deck whenever we are outside. They love it, of course. Any deck has lots of rabbit escape paths between and under the various boards, but Petey and Bruno had historically ignored them. We would just temporarily block off the stairs. A year or two ago, Pete had taken to slipping under or through the slats and hopping off the deck. She wasn't interested in running away, but was totally fixated with going WAY under the deck and digging a hole to China. My idea of fun is NOT crawling around in the under-deck muck, trying to coral a whacked-out rabbit who had other things on her mind.
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So I had a plastic mesh fence stapled up. It was really more of a suggestion of a barrier, since any self-respecting rabbit could bite its way through thin plastic in about half a second. Let me tell ya - many an I-pod headphone wire has been nipped in two over the years! How come this... oh, jeez... But Skippy quickly figured out that the fence could be easily defeated, so I installed some proper metal screening the other day. I even did it in a way that doesn't look crappy.
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It's been relatively cold for NC the last month or so. But let me tell you, nothing heats up faster than a black rabbit in the sun. Unless its TWO black rabbits in the sun.


Toastin' up, taking an afternoon snooze

It looks like Skippy will keep his name, sometimes lengthened to the more formal "Mr. Skippy". It just seems to fit him.

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