Project Design: Easter Bunny Alternatives

By Jael Paris - March 21, 2012

My husband and I love bunnies. Last week, we had two Dutch Dwarf mixes -- Mocha and Kinkajou. Unfortunately, Ms. Kajou, the sweetest, gentlest creature ever, fell ill and passed away last Wednesday. We're pretty broken up about it, but we've been getting lots of grief therapy in the form of playing with Mocha and talking about our future with bunnies.

We plan to watch Mocha for a month and discuss with the good people at West Michigan Critter Haven (an excellent place for anyone near Grand Rapids looking into rabbits) what he needs. Does he need a new bun to bond with, a playmate or just more alone time? As we've been looking at various bunny sites, we've noticed both a large amount of rabbits who've been rescued from abuse or neglect situations and a subsequent need for suitable foster homes to house the overflow of abandoned bunnies filling humane societies.

Sadly, with Easter coming up more bunnies -- misguided holiday purchases -- will be taken to shelters in a few months. While I will say without reservation that bunnies are fantastic pets, they're not the easy pet people expect (and really, pets aren't easy, period). If you're interested in adopting a bunny (and I recommend adoption both because they're usually already fixed and litter trained and because of the aforementioned shelter overflow), please read up on them at the House Rabbit Society first. If it sounds like too much work, you can volunteer to play with the rabbits at your local animal shelter. But if you really just want a cutesy little bunny without any work at all, just buy rabbit jewelry.

Clearly, I want all of this because as the previous three paragraphs indicate, I <3 bunnies.

silver rabbit locket from BirdzNbeez