A Saturday Surprise and a Temporary New Addition to the Family

I'm a bit late posting this blog post, but I'll post it all the same. I had a few technical issues with my phone camera and couldn't upload any photos, which I'd like to have done, but I maybe will in a later post. Anyway, here goes.

One Saturday morning, a couple of weeks ago, whilst getting ready to go to work, I got a call from OH who was out walking the dog in one of their favourite spots. He said he'd found two abandoned domestic rabbits let loose in the wild. 

One of them was sadly dead, the other was a bit worse for wear, but he'd managed to catch it and he told me he was bringing it home. He was upset that someone would so cruelly abandon a domestic animal in the wild, to be prey for foxes, dogs, etc.

Anyway, I looked up what we could feed it and got some lettuce out of the fridge and chopped it up ready for their arrival back home. 

OH had put it in the dog cage in the boot of the car.  The dog was going mad. She probably wanted to catch it and throttle it, so we tried to keep her away from it. To be honest, she just sat all day looking at it and didn't try to get at it at all, so I'm probably not being very fair to her in saying this.

We put it in the basement, which doubles as OH's office where we could shut it in at night. It was really cute, small and brown with lop ears.

Before going to work that day, I called in at all the shops on the high street that I thought might have sold rabbit food or hay, but none had any, so I put a call out on our street chat and luckily a lady responded who had a pet rabbit and kindly gave us some food and hay.

In the meantime, I had to go to work and on the way I stopped in at a local Pets at Home to get some food, hay, a water bottle and a flea treatment, as we didn't know if it might have fleas or lice or anything.

OH sent me a few pictures of the bunny through the day. It looked happy eating the hay and the pellets we were given and was even grooming itself at one point, so it seemed to be settling in with us. 

It was very thin though and you could feel it's bones under the fur when you stroked it. It's back legs were also stripped of fur for some reason and also very thin, just bones really, poor little thing.

Anyway, it was lovely to come home to it after a very, very busy day at work. Small animals are so very calming to observe and pet. I enjoyed spending time with it.

Over the next few days, we gave it plenty of food and love and let it run around in the basement at times to stretch it's legs. It was curious and hopped into every nook and cranny. Sometimes it would come up and nibble my foot. After a couple of days, it looked a lot more relaxed and was stretched out in it's cage chilling. It was a very sweet rabbit and had a lovely nature.

We contacted the RSPCA, who couldn't really do anything for us, but they did give us a reference number to use to take it to the vet for a check up. We couldn't find a vet locally who dealt with small animals, so, on the following Tuesday, OH rang a rabbit rehoming service and we arranged to take it to them.

It was a very sad day. If I'm honest, I would have very much liked to keep it, but it wasn't really very practical with the dog, as we couldn't give it the life we would like to and it wouldn't have any bunny friends with us. I understand rabbits like to live at least in twos. 

The lady who took him (she told us it was a boy and approximately a year old), was very experienced with rabbits and had a couple of rabbits already. She said she should be able to rehome him quite easily, which was good.  I truly hope she finds him a loving new home and that he's already making new bunny friends. 

I didn't think I'd get so attached to the little guy after just a few days, but I really miss him. I console myself by thinking that we were blessed to have him with us even for just a few days. Life seems a bit quiet now he's gone, but I guess we'll get used to it.