Bunnies doing bunny things

Happy Bella!

Oh look at these cute mini-films I got last night. I spent quite a while hanging off the end of the sofa trying to catch Bella's happy jumps, and she kept doing them off camera!

First a little one


A little higher...


She's really relaxing and enjoying exploring the house now. Much less nervous!

Christmas is coming...

Well, almost! But Look! Two new bunnies (ahem, hares actually) arrived this week to adorn our Christmas Tree! Thanks to Annette and Arrabella. Aren't they gorgeous?

Buttons gave his seal of approval with a chinning!

Bella was less interested, but there was a big pile of readi-grass in front of her!

Now we're getting in the festive spirit!

Study on ears

Some have 'up' earsSome have 'down' ears

Some are stubby...

Some are big...

Some are like satelite dishes, receiving your favourite tv show

Some are filters- only hearing what is important (and have cute white go-faster stripes)
Some flop out
But they are all soft and twitchy!

Happy Thanksgiving to our North American Friends... Happy Snow Day to our Scottish Friends (hoping the snow gets to Essex soon! I Love SNOW!)

Permission to land?

Bellabunairlines requesting permission for fly past? Just admire my beautiful ears, I mean, wings :)

Adventures in the lounge

Hooray! Today we let Bella into the lounge again... she's been barred of late due to bad toilet habits (and we realised we were perhaps rushing her - the lounge is a big scary place for a rabbit!). She's been really growing in confidence in the last week, and in the lounge she really started to enjoy herself.

The best surprise though - Buttons let us know very clearly that he was also very happy to be out of quarantine and back in the lounge... see his happiness displayed around the 1min mark!

Note also barricaded area to stop Bella going in the corner she previously decided was a good toilet area!

Food! (Yes, it's theme thursday again!)

Buttons has been getting ready for his audition for the local (bun)-am-dram society's Christmas production of Oliver! Here he is, practising the cute eyes and longing look for food in the famous scene: "Please sir, can I have some more?"



The funniest part of all this - he had just eaten his body size in Spring Greens! How could he need any more food!?!

Thanks to Theme Thursday for the inspiration.

Oh, you are so small I didn't see you there!

Bella: Hmmmph, this cushion is a bit lumpy, and I just want to get to that piece of lovely hay aaaaaalll the way over there [streeeeeeeeetch] [trample trample hmmph]
Buttons: Don't mind me. [raises eyebrows] typical!

Isn't it funny that Buttons doesn't seem to mind this!

Hungry bunnies

Buttons is learning that he has to eat quick or miss out with Bella around!

Relax, it's Theme Thursday!

Relax, stretch out with a friend!

Bella's story

Since you asked. Bella came to us via the Rabbit Residence, the most wonderful rabbit shelter in southern England (in my humble opinion) and you can read more about them here: http://bunniestotherescue.blogspot.com/

Thankfully Bella doesn't have a very sad story, she was just, how shall we say "unplanned".

An elderly and disabled lady bought two buns for companionship. As is usual, the pet shop didn't sex them right, or advise her on neutering, and before you could say "breeding like rabbits" she found herself over-run with baby buns and unable to take care of them. The lady struggled on valiantly for quite some time: Bella is from an early litter, and is about 18 months old, but started to realise she couldn't cope so called the rescue to help. They are in the process of rehoming 10 bunnies from this lady. And they've also talked her into fixing the ones she wants to keep and can cope with.

A happy ending for Bella, and us.

Bella is doing ok, but extremely nervous still especially of all the weird noises our house makes. She feels safe sitting on top of her house though. She loves head rubs, kale, readi-grass and broccoli!

Hop forward, hop back

As you can see (from this poor quality photo), Bella made her first proper trip into the lounge this weekend. She's found her way in by accident before, and immediately been shoo-ed out as she found a corner to pee in!

This time it was a great success... she stayed for over an hour - had a run around and seemed relaxed enough to chill out and snooze behind the sofa (after checking the area was safe by sniffing everything for 30 mins!). And the best success - no "accidents" in the lounge area. Not one!

Hooray I said, and promptly boasted to everyone I knew that Bella was doing really well and getting the litter tray thing already! What a genius!

But since then, I'm continuing to sweep up poo tods (when we had a rabbit when I was a child we always called them rabbit tods, I don't know why, but it's stuck with me), and twice last night, she wee'ed on the newspaper next to one of the litter trays instead of in it. I don't know if those were accidents because she doesn't fully get it yet, or accidents because it was Bonfire night (all weekend) and our neighbours were going crazy with the fireworks.

Floor to litter tray ratio of tods is definitely improving in favour of the litter tray.

I think I've been doing everything right, in terms of placement of trays, nice hay to entice her in, 'scenting' the trays, moving 'accidents' back into the tray etc. The thing I've struggled with is that it's not so easy to pick Bella up and place her in the tray when she has an accident - she's a big heavy girl, and clearly not in favour of being picked up.

Yesterday I tried sitting with her for a while and giving her a treat every time she went in the litter tray. The accidents last night may have been a protest because the treats disappeared!

Advice please... any tips on helping Bella get it? Give her more time I guess - I know you are all going to tell me I'm being impatient!

Do not disturb

We're busy snuggling ;)

Oh, Hi!

Hi, I'm Bella! I'm very excited! So much to do, so much to sniff, so much to eat! I love eating... I could eat aaaaaaaaaaaaaaallll day.

That is, when I'm not snuggling up for a snooze with my new man Buttons. Here we are together below - isn't he dreamy? I'm totally in love and very excited to be here. My favourite bit of the day here so far is when the human brings us breakfast, and dinner. She even sits on the floor and lets us eat Kale right out of her lap and gives us head rubs at the same time. I love eating!


Now I just have to work out why the human keeps following me around with a dust pan and brush and pointing towards the tray of saw dust and hay in the corner... I'll ask Buttons about that. Strange humans.

She's arrived!

And she loves kale!

AND... (fanfare) ... we named her Bella