Family Pet

This is the story of how we came to have a rabbit for our family pet.

We can't have a dog.  Brian is allergic to dogs.  And, before you say, "I am allergic to dogs too, but I still have a dog" -- I must add that he is deathly allergic.  Not just in an itchy eyes and throat sort of way, but in a closed off windpipe sort of way.  So, we can't have a dog.

We also can't have a cat.  I personally wouldn't mind an outdoor mouser, but Brian doesn't care for the company of felines and has firmly put his foot down.

Fish?  Meh.

Bird?  Maybe.

Hamster?

Here is a story about a hamster.

When we were living in China, Ian celebrated his 4th Birthday.  A friend gave him a pet hamster, complete with cage and all, for his gift.  Brian and I were a little unsure at first, but what could we do? 

We named the little guy Joey and he turned out to be one of the best things about our days in China.  The kids would get him out and play with him for hours.  He was friendly and cute.  We had a large, shallow, cardboard box and the kids would build playlands out of duplo legos for him to climb around on.  Joey was the perfect family pet.

Unfortunately, airline restrictions made it too complicated for us to bring Joey back to America.  So, we found him a nice home to stay at in China.

We moved back into our house in the summer of 2007 and it seemed obvious to me that a hamster was the perfect family pet.  So, I ran right out to the pet store, bought a fancy cage, and picked out what seemed like a nice hamster.

I was wrong.  He needed an exorcism.  He bit (and drew blood from) the first hand that tried to play with him.  He went straight back to the store.  They accepted him back and refunded my money, but sadly they told me that most hamsters from pet stores are mean like that because they can't be sold until they are older and they miss an important window when they could become socialized like Joey was.

I meant to shop around for someone who sold hamsters from their home, but I never got around to it.  Eventually the hamster cage was given away and here we were, five years later in the summer of 2012 still thinking about what our perfect family pet would be.

Ian said "bearded dragon."  But, I'm sorry, I just don't do reptile care.  Not that I have anything against them.  I'm just inexperienced in that department.

In fact, about the only pet department I am experienced in is rabbit.  When I was twelve-years-old my grandparents sent me $15 for my birthday and I took the money to the pet store and bought a gorgeous, tan, lop-eared rabbit named Christopher.  He lived on an enclosed deck right outside my bedroom (on the second floor).  It was the perfect arrangement and I loved that bunny.  He wasn't very tame and never let me carry him.  But, I loved to pet him and watch him hop around.  He lived for about 10 years and died after I had moved away to college.

I have been convinced for a long time that a bunny would be our perfect family pet, and Sophie became obsessed with the idea a little over a year ago.  But, we put it off because, first, Brian was not convinced, then, we were in the middle of moving to a new house.  After we got to the new house, we had no yard (and, Brian was not convinced) . . . you know how these things can get put off.

Right after we moved to this house, someone offered me a free rabbit hutch and I hauled it home.  It has been sitting there empty, just waiting for a rabbit to move in, and I have been waiting for the right opportunity -- which came to us when we went to the State Fair last month.

At the fair, I love to take the kids through the different barns to look at all of the animals.  When we got to the barn that houses the rabbits, I noticed that several of them were for sale.  There were exotic ones and purebreds, giant rabbits and tiny dwarfs, and all different colors with long ears or short, lop ears or tall, fuzzy hair and sleek -- so many different rabbits.

It just so happened that one of the ladies who was sitting with the rabbits while we were there was selling a tan bunny that she had purchased one year ago when he was a baby, thinking he was a lion head, but later discovered that she was wrong.  He was a mixed breed and she keeps show rabbits, so he had to go.  He was cute and friendly and neutered and best of all, he was only $10.  He wasn't what Sophie had envisioned -- she wanted a black and white baby -- but, after some convincing she agreed to make him ours. 

So, we brought our new rabbit home and changed his name from Nugget to Caramel.  We set him up in the hutch right outside our kitchen window, gave him some food and water, and wallah!  We were pet owners.

Over the next few weeks, we brought him inside to hop around about once a day and I even bought him a tiny harness and leash so Sophie could let him hop around in the grass in the front yard.  He was so calm about being held.  My childhood bunny would have torn my arms to shreds if I had tried to carry him around the way the kids carried Caramel around.

Then, one day, we had to move the hutch a little ways away from the kitchen window and I couldn't see Caramel every day when I worked on my computer.  Then, we turned the hutch so that Brian could back a load of gravel into the yard to get ready for phase two of our patio.  I felt guilty because I had to actually walk outside to see Caramel and make sure he was doing alright, but I didn't do anything about it right away.

A couple of days after that happened, Isaac went out to play on the Thursday morning of UEA weekend and came back in to announce, "Our bunny is gone."

I went outside to inspect and found that the bottom of the cage had given way and fallen out, probably sometime during the night.  The cage was old and I guess we hadn't realized that it was close to falling apart like that.

The kids, their friends, and I searched the yard thoroughly.  We searched the next door neighbor's yard.  We looked up and down the street.  We sent out an alert to the neighborhood e-mail.  At first I felt hopeful.  But, then I started to lose hope.

I thought about dogs and cars and wondered how our little Caramel could have possibly survived?

Luckily, my mom had picked Sophie up that morning and taken her shopping in Salt Lake, so she was gone the whole day.  She had no idea her bunny was missing, or I would have been dealing with her broken little heart too.

As it was, I found myself mourning the loss of this new family pet.  By afternoon, I was shedding actual tears.  I kept telling myself, "Calm down.  It was just a $10 rabbit."  But, myself would shout back hysterically, "But, I don't want another rabbit.  I want that rabbit!  I miss his funny little hair that sticks up around his ears and I will never find another rabbit as calm and pleasant as Caramel."

Then I would think about having to tell Sophie that Caramel was gone and that is when the tears would come.

But then a little miracle happened.  At 5 p.m. I went out to my car to go pick Ian up from Scouts and just at that moment, Caramel came hopping up our driveway!!!

I could not believe my eyes!  He came back!  With a little effort, I caught him and put him in a box.  I took him with me because I could not let him out of my sight.  The kids were so happy.  I was so happy.  Sophie was so happy later when we told her the whole story (and, blessedly, she didn't have to know about it until after we had the happy ending).

We enclosed him in our dining room, which has tile floors and not a lot of furniture, and there he would stay until we could mend his cage or buy a new one.  We all held him and made a big deal over him and fed him his favorite food - bananas.  That night, I held him for an hour until he started to grind his teeth (the rabbit equivalent of purring).

Over the next few days, we learned that an indoor rabbit roaming free (even enclosed in one room) can be trouble.  There was the mess of cleaning up after him (of course), but the other trouble was that he could open the door to the boys' bedroom, right off our dining room, and it turns out -- he is quite good at chewing up carpet.  So, after a few days, I decided that a family pet as adored and wonderful as ours was worth investing in.  I figured since he only cost $10, it was O.K. to buy him a decent cage.  So, I did.

Now, he lives in a cage in our family room.  And, if we ever want to, we can move the cage outside.  But, for now, we seem to like him to be indoors where we can keep an eye on him.  We don't want him wandering off in search of his next big adventure now that he's had a taste of freedom.