Hi folks, my name is Jenn and I'm grateful to be sharing my fuzzy family's experiences with the readers of Dog Meets Bunny! Thanks to Michelle for inviting us.
First, it bears stating that I am a life-long rabbit person, who for the past 8 years has been borderline obsessed (and outright worshipful) of one of my rabbits, LaFeet. LaFeet is 12 years old this July 2013 (quite mature for a bunny!) and I adopted him while living in New Orleans in the year following Hurricane Katrina - those who know NOLA may recognize LaFeet's namesake in the famous pirate. LaFeet is a rescue from the DC shelter, and took an airplane - two, actually - to come and live with me in Louisiana. When I moved back to my native Northern Virginia in 2006, I decided to find LaFeet a doe-friend, and worked with House Rabbit Society to adopt a lovely voluptous lady bun, Athena. Usual for bonded rabbits, these two are the best of friends, and I'm convinced that cohabitating with a vivacious younger mate is part of why LaFeet is such a happy and healthy senior bun. Hopefully the same holds true for people, since I just married a younger man this spring - love of my life, Elliott.
I'll try not to shock anyone with the myriad tales of my LaFeet fandom, but suffice it to say that he was the inspiration for my Halloween costume a few years ago (a giant LaFeet suit sewn from scratch) and my mother helped me felt some of his fur to include as a rosette in my hair clip for Elliott's and my wedding a few months ago. So yeah, love that rabbit. Athena too, of course.
As such, Elliott and I hold our bunnies' health and safety in the highest, so our longing for a dog friend meant a careful consideration of the challenges. Everything I'd read online - including this blog! - said that it really comes down to the dog. Since Elliott and I would be first-time dog people, finding the right pooch would be especially key. We reached out to a few local rescue orgs and heard about a special girl named Buffy.
Meeting Buffy and her foster dad at a Lost Dog Rescue event last week, we knew she was the one! Buffy, a shepherdy mix who's about 6 years old, is very calm and friendly, likes other dogs and cats (foster dad reports Buffy/kitty snoozings), is totally housebroken, responds well to rewards, and is an all-around mellow happy girl. This was our chance. We wound up bringing Buffy home that evening!
We live in a two-story single family home with a yard, and the bunnies live in a big pen in the downstairs. The top of the stairs is blockaded with a gate. The first night we just let Buffy get comfortable with us in upstairs land, getting to know the house and the smells and the yard and our bedtime routine. The next day we had lots of fun with her and in the afternoon brought up one of the bunnies' favorite digging towels to sniff. Buffy calmly sniffed it and we praised her for being gentle and friendly. I also made sure to pet her and share the smells of her on my hands with the bunnies downstairs throughout the day.
Buffy responded so well to the *sniff* test that we decided to bring her downstairs on-leash that evening to see the bunnies be served their leafy greens dinner. Read the next entry to find out how that went!
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