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When I was a little girl, my dad nicknamed me “Bugs”. I thought it was because I collected insects but, no, later he told me it was because I loved Bugs Bunny. Over the years, I longed to have a sweet little rabbit I could cuddle and love. When in my 20s my girlfriend adopted a shiny black bunny and named him Steve, I would jealously listen to her stories about Steve’s escapades and his amazing learning skills.

How was it that I had never been able to convince my father or anyone I lived with that a bunny was just as good as a cat? In my homes, dogs and cats lived together but I was told that bunnies would not fit into this mixture.

When Mark was a boy he had a bunny and a cat and so I thought he might one day want another rabbit. But when he came home from his week learning at Farm Sanctuary, he announced we would not be rescuing rabbits because they were fierce fighters and had too many health issues. He was very convincing and I agreed that with just us two doing all of the caretaking, it was probably best not to take on rabbits. Then things changed.

There was a woman who had too many rabbits — 1,600 actually, a number too big to imagine. Things were swirling out of control and she needed help so Best Friends animal sanctuary came in removed, spayed and neutered, and adopted out all but seven of these rabbits. Seven was a much more manageable number, even though they were feral. The rabbits were given almost an acre in a fenced yard filled with hutches and trees and plenty of food and water. The woman fed them, cared for them and loved them until she passed away. 

We were notified that the woman had put a clause in her will to have the rabbits re-homed and that she left money to pay to have a suitable home built for them. We were asked if we would think about taking them. It wasn’t until we saw pictures and, in the same week, had a snow storm that we decided to put in a bid to take the rabbits. We are, after all, a sanctuary and they needed a sanctuary to call home.

It took two weeks to catch them all — they had secret holes and loose house siding to dive into. Under the woman’s three trailers, there were mazes of tunnels. The rabbits — remember they’re feral — were fast and agile. Finally we’d caught all but one, a black and white blue eyed fellow named Rembrandt. According to the friend feeding the bunnies, he was the most elusive of them all and days would go by without a sighting of him. We spent whole weekend days waiting and leaving food for him. We went out on Thanksgiving afternoon, no bunny was seen. Finally on my birthday we made a plan to go out at dusk to try again. He was out and, after about 20 minutes of chase, we cornered him under some deck stairs and finally brought him home. This was the best birthday gift I could have received.

Now comes the challenging part: Two of the rabbits have lumps near their bottoms, and one has fur so matted that it would take weeks to cut out.  But we have a vet visit this week to hopefully fix these issues. It will still be a challenge, but worthwhile things usually are.

Rembrandt was the last rabbit we caught.