So we found ourselves the proud new owners of two rabbits. Well, more chagrined than proud, but you get the point. Amy immediately started researching rabbit care on the internet, and I immediately started playing video games. She fairly quickly figured out that our new pets were miniature lop-eared rabbits, found a couple of reliable websites on domestic rabbits, tracked down two good books on rabbit care, got a list of recommended foods, and made a vet appointment for them. Meanwhile, I confirmed that the shotgun is my favorite close-to-mid-range weapon, although fast flying targets usually require a sub-machine gun, since volume of fire is more effective against them.
In my defense, I must point out that in the event of a transdimensional rift allowing hordes of demonic hell-things to rampage across the planet, practical knowledge on the care and feeding of miniature lop-eared rabbits will be somewhat less useful than tactical applications of firearms. Rest assured that I have thoroughly studied such subjects in a variety of threat scenarios, including alien invasion, ninja assault, supernatural infestation, and the overrun of urban centers by zombies. All in all, my best recommendation is to nuke them from orbit; it’s the only way to be sure. Short of that, find a shotgun.
Apparently, a lot of people keep their rabbits outside in a hutch. It never occurred to us to do that. For my part, I don’t particularly like being outside, so I pretty much assumed the same for our pets. Amy didn’t see the point of keeping them in a small cage like that, plus keeping them outside in the elements seemed just plain mean. Besides, we’d either have to build a hutch (unlikely) or spend a crap-load of money buying one (more unlikely). That meant keeping them inside.
The problem with keeping them inside was that we didn’t have anything to keep them in. We figured we’d keeping in the small back bedroom, but we couldn’t really let them run free in there, 24/7. That meant buying a cage or figuring out how to build one. Well, at least an inside cage would be a smaller problem than an outside hutch.
Naturally, Amy found the solution in her research. Target sells these storage cube kits that involve panels of wire grates, which are held together at the corners and edges by plastic hubs. The online rabbit forum’s solution involved buying several of these kits, then simply fastening them together with plastic cable ties. Using this idea, Amy managed to put together a spacious cage, 4’ tall by x 5’ long x 3’ deep, with three internal levels for climbing. Buying a cage (or rather a kennel) that size would probably run more than four hundred dollars, whereas Amy paid maybe $65 for parts.
That solved, we still didn’t have names for them. Naturally, we immediately thought of the killer rabbit from “Monty Python & The Holy Grail”, but unfortunately that rabbit never had a name. It was simply known as the killer rabbit. Of course, part of the problem was that we didn’t know their genders. My suggestion was to simply turn them over and look, but apparently they’re not quite built that way. Odd that their anatomy is more discreet than their behavior. In any case we’d have to wait for the vet.
So we looked to their behavior for clues as to possible names. The tan one seemed a bit more gregarious, a little cautious but more friendly and outgoing. The dark one, on the other hand, seemed to just be watching us with quiet resentment. More than anything, I was reminded of sidebar in The Onion: a photo of an adorable kitten, with the caption, “Kitten Thinks Of Nothing But Murder All Day.”
The vet checked out the bunnies and pronounced them to be healthy, three months old, and probably siblings. She also told us that the tan one was male and the dark one was female. We immediately made an appointment to have them fixed. This seemed to be the obvious step. We didn’t want more rabbits, but we also didn’t want to deal with spraying or other territorial behavior. We did the same for our cats and, rest assured, we plan to do the same for any children. If there’s going to be spraying or territorial behavior in this house, then I’m the one who’s going to be doing it.
So now that the bunnies were gender-identified, we settled into the serious business of naming them. Amy decided that the tan one, the male, should be named Monty. The name was reasonably common but implied a sense of whimsy, as well as being a reference to Monty Python. That left naming the female to me . . . always a risky proposition.
She seemed to be tolerant but a bit more distant than Monty. Her principal character trait seemed to be watching us with a quietly murderous intent. It seemed like such an absurd incongruity, so I named her Murderbunny. I knew Amy would be justifiably appalled, so I told her that it was just temporary label until something more appropriate suggested itself. It was one of my few cunning moments, because I knew that the temporary label would become the name by default, as Amy got used to it.
I remembered that we’d had a similar situation with one of our cats. The smaller one had been barely more than a kitten when we got her and she was prone to sniffles and a runny nose, so Amy had taken to calling her Lil’ Snotty, for lack of a real name. I was not going to have a cat named Lil’ Snotty, but I couldn’t get Amy to move on a real name, so I took it upon myself to resolve the situation. Amy had been justifiably appalled when I pulled a name out of English history: Aelfgifu. I figured, good enough for King Canute, good enough for me. I’m also available for christenings.
Consequently, we are now the proud (if chagrined) owners of two cute-as-hell miniature lop-eared rabbits named Monty and Murderbunny. As a side note, you may gather that “justifiably appalled” is a term used in our household with some regularity.
[...] If you want to read about their arrival in our lives, I’ve back-posted those letters here and here. Amy tells me that it’s a heart-warming story, and she recommends you read [...]