I've owned a variety of animals, but I don't think you can beat rabbits. They are probably the most compelling little creatures ever. We got Loki about 6 months or so ago, and we had fallen so in love with the little guy we took him home, at an enormous risk. Sean's Mom was absolutely positively against us bring in any more animals into the house, but we both knew that meeting that rabbit was some sort of predestined fate thing that was absolutely meant to happen.
Being a very avid guinea pig owner, I had volunteered to help out a little bit at Tiny Paws, a local rescue for small animals. The rescue is based out of a woman's house, and since I was meeting her for the first time, Sean had agreed to go with me. When the morning came, Sean grumpily complained the whole time and begged me to let him stay in bed. But not wanting to make a bad impression, I did not give in to his demands and dragged him to the car anyway.
Now I had never really even seen a rabbit before in my life. Linda, who runs Tiny Paws, showed me around at man different rabbits, all breeds and sizes, but the one that caught our attention was a big, fat cinnamon colored rabbit named Krickett. He was being kept in an x-pen, so he hopped up on top of a box, sniffed us and let us pet him. He was very friendly, and just from the way he was looking at us, I could tell he was very very smart. He almost reminded me of that sort of intelligence I feel when I'm around horses, or deer. Maybe it's a prey thing.
Linda told us that she'd gotten him from another local rescue who was extremely overcrowded. He had been brought to that rescue over a year ago, by a woman who had rescued him as a baby. A man had released a bunch of domestic rabbits into the woods to train his hunting dogs, and Krickett's mom had made it out and had a litter of cute babies in her garage. Her instincts had obviously saved her, so he represents a real life example of the survival of the fittest. Maybe that's why he had that crafty sort of demeanor about him, like an incarnation of Brer Rabbit in the flesh.
Now, keep in mind I am not here to adopt any rabbits. I had taken Sean's mother's threats to heart and I focused on the volunteer work I was there to do. I was supposed to transport one of the rabbits to a local Pet Supplies Plus, where he could be on display for the public, but available for adoption through the rescue. And guess which rabbit that happened to be? It could have been any of the other cute adorable bunnies we had seen, but the second I saw it was the only rabbit in the room that had clicked with us, my heart sank. Not in the depressed way, but the sort of chest feeling you get when a new reality is clicking into place and your body braces itself to take a new path. Well, maybe I was a little nervous. Sean had spent most of the tour quietly petting Krickett, and I knew we might be in for some trouble dropping him off at the store.
We left Linda's house with Loki loaded into a cardboard carrier. We had about a 20 minute drive to the pet store, and we simply had to drop him off and go. Sean, who relaxed once he was out of the presence of a stranger, opened the box and started cuddling the rabbit. He baby talked him and reassured him the whole ride while Krickett sat calmly in his box. 10 minutes go by of this. Then Sean asks me, "Where are we taking him?" So, tell him to the pet store where he can get adopted. His face immediately contorted into something between outraged and crestfallen. "WE CAN'T TAKE HIM TO THE STORE. Let's take him home with us." I look over and see my then fiance and this rabbit, who he'd taken out of his box and was snuggling in his lap, and I knew there was no way I could break them apart. I try to be very goal oriented and objective in general, and I try to be a voice of reason within our relationship. But I fail time and time again when it comes to the animals; something happens and my psyche just locks in with them. So we called Linda and we adopted Krickett, not even halfway to the pet store.
Now I love research and googling and learning how to do new things. These possibilities excite me and I love exploring different plans and scenarios in my head. I researched all about rabbits as soon as I got home and knew what to expect. But, things diverged into a different direction. We were living in an unfinished basement at the time, and even though we had tried our very best to make a home down there, the cold was inescapable and light didn't get in very well. Sean's mother didn't approve of our guinea pigs so we had taken the lesser of two evils and moved downstairs. We had cleared out a decent living space that we kept relatively tidy, the rest of the basement serving as a storage/laundry room. There was so many years of old newspapers and toys and craft supplies around, with so much space to get lost, we vowed to never let Krickett leave our living area. We enclosed him in with gates and barricades, which he spent long hours dismantling.
He was a downright demolitions expert. Most of the contemporary rabbit sites/books suggested providing him with alternatives to distract him from this task. Like a border collie, he needed a job to do and was becoming destructive. So I got all sorts of fun boxes, toilet tubes, phone books to shred, cat toys, etc, which he sniffed and promptly ignored. All the fun descriptions of rabbits tossing baby keys and playing in untreated wicker baskets were lies. But, upon escaping his enclosure, he did show a great interest in digging things out of the garbage, and tearing upon trash bags. He also loved to get into all sorts of things in this manner. No matter how many times we double checked an area to make sure it was bunny safe, he would always find something. One day he finds non toxic (thank god) paints in sealed plastic containers, sealed in a plastic storage tub and sealed in plastic. Of course he gets in and eats it (seems to have preferred the colors yellow and red). He digs into the garbage one day and discovers a love for kruncher's jalapeno chips (I cannot eat anything with crinkly bags anymore for this reason).The day after he spills the 10 lbs of rabbit food all over the floor and takes a nap in the middle of the pile. This rabbit just seemed to love mischief and destruction! So I even tried replicating these scenarios, setting out enticing bags to rip open and things to get into, which he promptly ignored. He preferred to destroy as a favorite pastime, and he only liked to destroy things of importance, not things intended for rabbits (with the sole exception of a stuffed bear, which he doesn't really play with, but will maybe once a week practice bunny-judo on it by trying to pin down all its limbs at once). And he was absolutely unresponsive to his name. Our desperate cries of "Krickett!" as he got up onto a chair and shredded a $60 at 3 in the morning fell on what seemed to be selectively deaf ears. I, being the mythology lover that I am, proposed Loki to be his new name, which he responded to immediately. A rabbit THIS mischievous and crafty can only be deity shape shifted into bunny form. I'd like to imagine Loki getting away from all the drama at Asgard by going where no one would think to look; in the shape of a very spoiled, overfed bunny rabbit.
