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[Starver]

I'm pet-sitting a rabbit, at the moment.  And just as I started this post he (actually a she, but that particular gender-error has stuck, amongst both 'its' owners and myself) has started nibbling my trouser-legs again...

...anyway, I had to go get some additional feed and maybe a couple of treats.  Usually, for this little blighter, I go to a particular pet-supplies store (multi-branch) that just sells supplies.  Today, however, I decided that while I was passing I'd go to a different chain, and they are a pet store, with supplies around the outside and actual pets-in-waiting in the middle.

I'm always a bit unhappy that when I have to go out during the day I must keep the rabbit in its cage.  Where he normally lives, they work from home and so there's always 'someone there to ignore him', and he's probably happy when he's not being pestered by the kids.  When they go on holiday I take him (and any other small pet they currently have, though they're in-between living hamsters at the moment) back to my place to at least keep the feeding-and-watering going, and when I'm present in the room I'm happy (most of the time, as long as he doesn't nibble the lower books on my bookshelf) to let him wander around in a carefully sectioned-off part of the room.  Most of the time he's no bother, and in fact now he's just sitting under the chair I'm sitting on.

So, in the pet-store I first of all go a bit analytical ("none of those rabbits are as big as the one I've got... ah, they're younger ones, and different breeds, and I haven't been there to over-feed them, either"), wander off into "ahhh, cutesy bunny"-type mode, etc, but then I start thinking.  These bunnies (and possibly other animals, but mostly the bunnies) are probably not going to be bought as a job-lot with their brethren and sistren also interned within their same glass walls.  Not wanting to be anthropomorphising, at all, when one of them is bought as a pet, they're going to be taken away from their peer-group, never again to meet.  This guy (or, as she is, gal, but I shall continue to be androprocentric because it fits better in my mind) that I've got was probably similarly removed from a group.  I'm unhappy in the first place that he is left without stimulation for the duration of the work day (plus commute, plus other time spent away from the house) and now I have to deal with the fact that he has a family he was once with.  Brothers and 'brothers', and 'father' as well (although 'he' probably never met 'his' actual-father father).

I like pets.  Cats[1], dogs[2], etc.  This rabbit, and the several hamsters that he has survived, have been entertaining house-mates, for the various short durations I have been host to them.  Their intelligences have been obvious, upon observation[3], as well as degree of personalities.  I don't think I could bear to actually have a pet of my own.  Without even thinking of the loss I will experience when they depart[4], I'll have a constant stress of worrying whether they're getting enough stimulation that no amount of fur-stroking could reduce.  (As it is, I'm doing my duty to keep them alive so for these short-term adoptions I'm fairly happy.  I also know I will be (unfortunate deaths permitting!) handing them back at some point, so I can defer the stress and then let it evaporate after my fostering is over.)


Anyway, with the rabbit now doing fast orbits about my legs (and the occasional trouser-leg pull with his teeth, to get my attention), my train of thought has been derailed and I'm not sure I've said everything I want to say.  Rabbit wants to play, and I'm happy to do so too, so I'll bring this little missive to a close.  I've no idea if there is even a proper response to what I've written, but I just wanted to get this (especially with the pet-store incident) off my chest.


[1] Though there's a lot around this neighbourhood doing their usual semi-feral thing, and I can't get attached to any of these now.  But if I'm away from home and a cat that doesn't run away from people can be enticed to rub against my leg, I'm rooted to the spot for as long as my schedule allows, patting and petting it, at least until it gets bored or gets a little too playfully bold with claws or teeth.

[2] Usual caveats apply to these, of course, when it comes to ones in their own territories.

[3] For example, part of my room-partitioning currently consists of some boxes placed up against the wall, up against the radiator.  There's a small gap below it, however, into which I jammed a large (and heavy) builder's-style tape-measure.  Just one look at it and the rabbit stretches his neck into the head-sized gap above it, grab hold of the measure's attached loop of chord with his teeth and yanks it out of place.  Needless to say, I've replaced this with a tighter fitting bit of junk, slightly bigger than the normal gap so additionally clamped in place by the pressure of the boxes.

[4] Not something I normally think about, because when mortality came to various animals of my frequent acquaintance, thankfully also while I wasn't in charge of them, I was mostly buffered from the hamster-deaths.  And a dog I knew since it was a puppy was retired to the country for several years prior to his shuffling off his mortal coil and joining the pack invisible.

[Darvi]

I petsitted our neighbour's rabbits once.

The last night one died D:

[scriver]

Pets are great. My family got our first cat just some time before I was born, and I always considered her to be part of the family not very much unlike the rest of us.
..Then she died.

[Starver]

I really don't know what to say.  Apart from having had to think about the possibility as part of the thoughts behind my OP, I really wouldn't want to consider it happening to me.

Apart from anything else, should this rabbit die it'd be all the rabbits in my care that died.  Not intending to lessen the impact of your own situation, by saying that, but by saying this it probably looks like I protest too much.  Again, I don't really know what to say.  Words fail me.  Or, rather, the words flow wildly, but fail to convey my thoughts sufficiently.

See, even the idea of someone else's pets stresses me out!

edit: And I should have read scriver's post before force-posting the above past the "new posts" bit...  My sympathies.

[Ricky]

My family has three cats, they live happily, but one of them is so old, he's probably gonna pass away soon, and we've had this cat since before i was born :c

[SalmonGod]

I'm confused by the OP, so I'm going to treat it as a pet discussion thread.  Correct me if I'm wrong for doing so.

I love pets.  Have had a rat, guinea pigs, cats, dogs, a parrot, snakes, praying mantis, spiders, hamsters, a ferret, and sugar gliders.  Not all of those were my pets, but ones I have shared a household with at some point in time.

I currently have a ball python and two sugar gliders.  None of them gets as much attention as they should due to kids and schedules.  I feel bad about it, but I keep promising them and myself that things will get better.

I don't like dogs.  As an introvert, they are offensive to me.  They are extroverted pets.  They constantly crave attention and activity and it's annoying and exhausting.  Even when they are being well-behaved, I can feel the waves of energy flying off of them craving attention, action, and approval.  I have dealt with a lot of dogs and only known 4 that I actually liked.

I love cats.  My favorite pet ever is a cat that I was very close with.  Unfortunately, my wife is allergic

[Starver]

I'm confused by the OP, so I'm going to treat it as a pet discussion thread.  Correct me if I'm wrong for doing so.

As the OPer (with a rabbit now reclined underneath the desk, sated for attention), you have my blessing to take it as that.  The initial impetus behind the thread was lame and badly-implemented.

I'll add that the only pets 'I' have had were fish in a pond.  They were nameless and decorative.  They also disappeared one by one at the same time as a heron happened to pop by (probably a coincidence).  In that pond (at an address I'm no longer living at) the most recent visitors have been frogs, the current inhabitant is am impossibly huge amount of frogspawn[1] and from past years' experience there'll shortly be a huge number of small tadpoles.  To be later replaced by a slightly less huge number of bigger tadpoles, etc.

In many ways, this seems more a satisfying situation than merely having a few fish that can't hide under all the water-plants the pond has always had.  Albeit that this is all increasingly OT for the thread.  Even though it's 'my' thread, I feel I should apologise for this deviation.

[1] Uxbridge English Dictionary definition: What frogs read to get horny.

[Pnx]

I used to have rabbits when I was young and lived in france, I remember they used to bite me, very painfully. I think it may have had to do with how I handled them (keeping in mind I was a 5 year old child)

We've always had cats, we only have one, her name is Sugar, she's nearly 10 years old now, and has actually gone insane... no joke, she has always been a very stand offish cat that never wanted to be held, and might be up for a cutch every so often. But usually just wants to be left alone.

Then she was put under for some dental surgery, and we think she had a stroke because of it. One of her eyes is blown, the pupil doesn't contract, and now she wants attention ALL the time. She constantly pesters me. It wouldn't be so bad, except the constant purring gets on my nerves, and she has an irritating habit of drooling on me when sitting on my lap. She also sheds hairs all over me, and sticks her claws into me.
I quite like cats in general, but I hate that cat.

I also have two dogs, they are shitzu-poodle mixes. One is light brown, the other black with white.

Spoiler:  this actually looks exactly like one of them (click to show/hide)

They're a great breed of dog, because they're small and have a good temperament, while being fluffy and adorable. Great lap dogs, in fact one is sitting on my lap right now with his head resting in the crook of my elbow.

I love my dogs, they're a hell of a lot of effort to take care of, but they'll always love you back, and no matter what, when you come home they're really happy and excited to see you. Which can be amazingly good at cheering you up.

[Starver]

Anyway, with the rabbit now doing fast orbits about my legs [...]

Just to report that the rabbit was running around this part of the room ('assigned as a burrow' by dint of various blockading items, including a 2-foot high sheet of aluminium at one point, held up by various boxes/spare computer cases blocking off the other parts, where even I have to abnormally stride over the sheet to get from one side to the other), but I didn't pay much attention.

Suddenly, a crash!  I look around, and rabbit has landed on the sofa in the non-burrow part of the room.  In amongst some random rubbish, so not as soft a landing as it should have been.  Put up some fight, but managed (for once) to pick him up and deposit him back in the appropriate part of the room, where he is now laying down besides my chair (apparently uninjured) as if nothing had happened.

There's no way rabbit could get an eye-line on where he would be landing.  I hope this sates his curiosity, or I'll have to build the barrier up to three feet and even I'll have difficulty getting across without moving bits of it.

Incidentally, the estimated angle of lift-off, even given a running start from the other side of the room, was greater than 45° from the horizontal, due to where various bits and pieces of furniture are that would have impeded any take-off until about 3 feet away from the barrier.


(No, I'm not making this thread into a personal "wabbit-blog", but just wanted to vent a bit of this new stress.)

[Ricky]

One thing comes to mind.

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Starver]

He's already been given a carrot. And a... wild berry popcorn-esque stick thing.

But nice suggestion.