Therapy Bunny in Training (TBIT)

http://www.hov.org/pet_program.aspx
We think Bennett would be a good therapy bunny when he grows up, so we're training him up a bit. Sadly, Heather hasn't been feeling well due to side effects of a new med, so Bennett's been visiting her in bed. He loves to snuggle in Mama's bed!

Roadtrippin' Bunnies

We went in search of wildflowers in the Superior, AZ, area yesterday to see the beautiful wildflowers, and to see how the bunnies reacted to roadtrips. Unfortunately, we had to cut the trip short because we started having brake problems, and returned early (Cecil is now in the shop :( ). We stopped for lunch beside the road to Queen Valley, where there were large patches of lupine beside the road. Along US-60, there were amazing fields of poppies, desert marigold, lupine, and orange and fuchsia flowers we didn't recognize. Neither of us were comfortable with stopping on the highway, so no pictures of those. Just memories, ours and Bennett's- he is quite the traveler and likes to look out the front of the carrier. Here are the pics taken during the lunch break:

Ocotillo blooms:

Lupine with white daisy- type flowers:
Bunny in the hatch, enjoying his lunch (Ella is definitely our homebody, and was happy to sit in the back corner or the litterbox while Bennett tried to escape):


In preparation for Easter, here are the bunnies practicing for their Easter photoshoot in their Easter basket. Happy Easter!
P.S. Knock, knock.


Who's there?



Bun!



Bun who?




Bunny butt!!

Written by Laurie, photo arrangement dictated by Heather.

Bunny videos

Yesterday, I dug out my old casio camera which has been in the "electronics" bin in the garage since we've moved and it fell out of favor when we got our digital SLR. It has a feature that the SLR doesn't, the ability to make videos! The quality isn't fantastic, but I've been wanted to post videos of some of the cute things the bunnies do and today I got a few shot and edited a little bit to post to the blog.

This first video is of Bennett playing with his Kong toy. We couldn't find the "small animal" version, but the smallest dog one works just fine for him and sometimes Ella will join in the fun, too. If you will notice, he will toss it up into the air or boss it around and then spend several minutes trying to find if anything came out of it. Pretty funny and a great toy! The treat inside is dried pineapple.

This video is of Bennett being Bennett. He does a little bit of binky-ing in this video, where he races around the room at a break neck speed and then just stops and looks around like - where am I? Also, at the end of the video, you can see the neat trick his Auntie Laurie taught him - how to hop up into the "bunny condo".

Now for the Ella ones. Here is Ella drinking at the water bottle. She's still working on perfecting her technique, and you can see her biting the spout and shaking it in an effort to make it do what she wants. It's a roll bottle type of dispenser, so licking it gives you water, but not biting or shaking. She's learning!

This last video is of Ella washing her face. She is just adorable when she does this and I'm kind of sad that the lighting in the video is so poor. It was rainy today and the light in the bunny room isn't movie filming quality, but you can still see how cute she is when she does it. (You will also notice Bennett flopped over in front of her taking a nap.)

We've kind of got the feeding situation figured out now. I feed Bennett his pellets in the big carrier in the morning and let Ella munch on hers if she's interested until he finishes his. Then I put hers up out of reach. For dinner, they seem fine sharing greens and Bennett definitely gets all he needs, so that's not a big deal. Yesterday and just a few minutes ago, Ella came up to me and kind of pawed at me and nipped at my clothing, which I think is her new command for me to get her pellets down so she can munch because when I've done that she stops nipping and pawing. Both times she's done that, Bennett has been occupied with something else and it's worked out nicely. Again, at bedtime, I give Bennett his second bowl of pellets in the large carrier and let Ella eat whatever is left of her pellets. It seems like this feeding schedule is working out, so I'm happy and they are definitely well fed!

2 Bonded bunnies

I'm so happy to announce that Bennett and Ella have taken the final bonding step, they are now living together in one space! The whole room is now undivided, no longer to two bunnies exist side by side in pens, there is one pen, one whole room that is now their kingdom (hopefully this kingdom will be extended eventually). Yay for bonded bunnies! It is so much easier to hang out and take care of them, without trying to hop the fence that used to be down the middle of the room! They both did really well, we took out the divider yesterday morning and Laurie did work in there on her computer all day to observe their behavior in the new space. She reported that she saw cuddling and grooming (even Ella grooming Bennett!) and no fighting. So, we took the plunge and let them spend the night together. As far as I can tell, there was no bunny butt hair pulling and no obvious wounds from any fighting. They are definitely a happy couple, it's very cute.

There are a few hiccups, of course, with this new arrangement. The biggest is feeding times. Bennett will wolf up anything that he sees as food and when he's done with his pellets, he moves right on to hers. While Ella is more of an all day snacker on pellets, but I can't leave her food down for her, because Bennett would definitely make it his second or third breakfast. So, this morning for breakfast time, I put Bennett in the large carrier with his pellets and let Ella snack on hers out in the room, with no pressure from him. When he finished, I put hers up so he couldn't feast on them. I'm hoping that she'll learn to eat when she gets the chance of Bennett being in the carrier and until she really catches on, she can keep her tummy happy with hay. Last night, when I fed them their salads, neither seemed really concerned when the other hopped up and started eating at his or her plate. Most of the time, the other would switch plates and a play ring around the salad dishes of sorts. I'm pretty sure that they each got enough greens to satisfy them (although I know Bennett would interject here and say that he always needs more food, he's never satisfied). Ella is a vacuum cleaner when it comes to greens, which is really funny to watch, it's like she doesn't chew at all, where Bennett takes a long time chewing it all.

In other good news, Ella has learned to drink her water from the water bottles. She watched Bennett do it enough times that she finally got the hang of it. Sometimes, though, she gets frustrated with it and tries to bite the end off of the drinking end (which is metal) and gets a funny look on her face, like "why isn't this working!".

This morning, Laurie and I worked on getting some of Ella's marking spots off of the carpet. Boy did she get mad at us for doing it. Those spots where hers and nobody better touch them. Midway through the cleaning, she walked right up to me and lifted her tail and marked, just to make a point. Sadly for her, we cleaned that one up, too. Yes, Ella, we know the whole room belongs to you, enough with the marking already!

Our yard is full of weeds in the back, and I'm hoping that some of them are dandelions, because dandelions are very good bunny treats. I'm going to see if I can collect some of the seeds when they ripen and grow some in the house for good bunnies. We'll see if I can :). We got some dried pineapple from Trader Joe's on Friday and it's pretty much bunny crack for both bunnies (even Ella, who doesn't really do the sweet thing), even more coveted than the dried apple O's. We're really lucky to have TJ's so close, because all their dried fruit is sugar and sulfide free.

Well, I'm hungry, so I'm going to go see what's for lunch, just wanted to share the happy bonding news!

Lots of bunny photos

Yesterday, I hung out with the lovely bunny couple on their two dates with my good camera, to see if I could get some nice pictures of them cuddling (nice as in pictures not taken with my cell phone). I got a couple of good bonding photos and some pretty hilarious (in our opinion, Laurie and me) "classic" Bennett pictures and some sweet ones of Ella, too.

The Ella ones are first...

And then a cute one of Bennett...

Classic Bennett set #1:

"Oh! A toy!"

"Fun toy!"

"Move over, Ella - where'd the toy go?"

"Is it up here?"

"Gotcha!"

Classic Bennett set #2:

Heather picks up the camera because Bennett is doing something cute, he sees and runs over and these pictures ensue... (Note: the brown things are my legs that he's climbing up to lick the camera.)

And finally, if you've made it this far, the cute bonding and cuddling pictures that I promised.

We just got back from the vet's office and have an official diagnosis of fur mites. Funnily enough, we couldn't find any of the patches on Bennett at the office, but I had brought along Ella because Laurie said she saw a patch on Ella last night. I had no idea where the patch was, but Dr. Holmes found it and they are both being treated. The great news is that Bennett has gained a pound since our visit last month! Yay!

More bunny business (or, what I forgot to say in the last post)

Lol, I'm here typing this post, to add in what I forgot last night, and Bennett is binkying all over the place! It's hilarious! I think he might have just hurt himself landing on the gate though - ouch! Nope, he seems fine, I wonder who fed him the bunny crack while I was away talking to my case manager...

Anyways, I forgot a few things of bunny business last night. I've been sick the past couple of days, so I'm blaming that on why I forgot such a large amount of stuff. For one thing, we've been cleaning bunny butts. Last week, I was trying to see if I could find a treat that Ella likes because she doesn't really seem to be into the sweets. She'll take a small bite and (there he goes again, binkying all over) then just kind of abandon the treat until Bennett finds it and eats it. So, I thought I would try giving her carrots as a treat, which she really liked and ate. I gave her exactly 3 baby carrots and that was enough to upset her delicate cecum. For the next couple of days, she had very runny cecal pellets and needed to be cleaned off after each one. For two days, we had to flip her over and clean her up a couple of times. We used a pink towel to spray the soap onto and wipe off what she couldn't clean off herself. After each time we cleaned her, she didn't act indignantly towards us, but man did she give that towel a talking to. Each time, she mounted the towel and told it who was boss. Laurie thought she might have been cleaning herself off further, but I highly doubt it, it violated her, so she violated it, or so I think it went in her mind.

Also in the past week, Laurie taught Bennett a new trick. He can now hop in and out of what we are calling the "bunny condo", which is an old filing cabinet that doesn't have the drawers in it, that is perched on top of the nesting box, partially to keep bunnies from hopping over the wall and partially to train them into what we hope will be a real bunny condo eventually. He can hop in and out of the box and really likes doing it, too. The other day, I set Ella's water dish in there in an effort to get it out of Bennett's reach (because, yes, he's a very silly bunny and likes to play in water as well as drink it) and he hopped in there right on top of it and spilled it everywhere. When I proceeded to move it, he spent a lot of time afterward licking up the remnants. He also gave me quite the shower when he finished in there and wanted to dry off.

I think that is the rest of bunny business... until I remember something else.

Bunny business

Lots have been going on with the bunnies lately, it seems like everyday, I have one more thing to say about what's going on with them. Bonding is going really, really well. We haven't had anything close to a fight in about 5 days, and there has been lots of grooming and cuddling, as you can see by the following pictures. They have graduated from the small pen enclosure to the half-room enclosure with no problems. In fact, Saturday night, Bennett figured out how to pop the gate up out of the latch that it's in and was able to spend a whole night alone with Ella and the whole room. Neither of them got hurt because of it, but I'm still not convinced (even though he obviously believes that they are ready to be together forever) that keeping them together overnight on purpose is a good idea. Let's give it at least another week.

On Sunday, we put up the permanent puppy fencing that our good friends Paul and Debbie were getting rid of. It's just barely too short for the room, so we will be needing to get another panel of fence for it to go across the whole room, and after we let the bunnies into it, we discovered that Ella can slip between the bars in the gate and escape into the part of the room that isn't bunny proofed. So, needless to say, our gate arrangement has left something to be desired... I think the plan is going to be that in a few weekends, when Laurie gets the time, we'll cover the fencing with pretty fabric that will keep bunnies on one side and cords and couch and cedar chest on the other.

While Laurie was putting up the new fencing in the bunny room, I was in the corner of the room, trying to keep the bunnies out of the way and me out of the way. Bennett stayed in his carrier for a little bit while he was noshing on some pellets for breakfast and Ella and I got to have some playtime in a very small, enclosed space. She had to hop up on my lap to get across the enclosure we made with the xpen and since we were in such tight quarters, she really opened up in affection towards me. That day, she let me pet her for long periods of time when Bennett was off doing what Bennett does best (getting into trouble) and since that period of enclosure with her, she'll hop up onto my lap now, asking for pets and she is really coming out of her shell. She's initiating contact and cuddling with Bennett, now, which is great! She's really come a long way in three weeks! She makes the cutest noises when she's in bunny bliss, because of her sinus condition and I've been really excited to be around her lately, she and Bennett have stolen my heart :).

Unfortunately, we think that Bennett might have fur mites. He's had a little bit of dandruff for awhile, which Laurie's noticed, but I didn't. We found two spots on him that kind of look like flakey scabs, they are really little but need to be looked at by our vet. My sister, Andie, is going to drive me to the vet office on Friday for an appointment. We're just bringing Bennett, but it's likely that Ella will need to be treated for it, too, since they spend so much time together. It's possible that he's had them all along, Laurie's said that she has seen them (the flakes) for all the time that we've had him, so we'll see what goes on with the vet on Friday.

Ok - the pictures:

Bennett and Ella snuggling on Sunday.

On a date, sharing their litter box. Oh how romantic!

These next few were taken with my cell phone, so they're not the best quality...

Snuggling some more!

Cuddlebuddies.

This is when Ella decided she was done with us taking pictures of them being cute, trying to hop away to decide if she wanted to mount him and Bennett looking lost and forlorn at her departure. (Still a cute picture though!)

A new name

Things with the bunnies have been going really well. Bonding is moving right along, and now they are out of the close quarters, large cardboard box, and into some more space in the exercise pen for their dates. There haven't been any major fights at all, nothing like what happened with Mallory and Bennett. Most of the time, if there is some tail chasing, I say stop loudly and they stop and go back to their respective corners to cool off a bit. Mostly, the tail chasing starts when Bennett puts his head down to get groomed and she doesn't respond, so he chases her a bit and then stops and very apologetically, goes back to grooming her.

I have purposely said "her" so far because we have decided to change Mahala's name. I wanted her to have a new name because coming to her forever home is a big deal and in big, life changing circumstances, we often take a new name and put the past behind us. I want Mahala to put the abuse and hoarding behind her, even though I know it will take time for her to truly learn to trust us and know that she is in a safe place. Her new name is Eleadora, which means "gift of the sun" and is a frequent saint name. Mostly, we're calling her Ella for short, and she has been a gift to our family, so I think her new name fits very nicely. Bennett would be the first to say that she's been a gift to him, he loves her and grooms her and has patience with her even though she does relatively nothing to reciprocate, except allowing him to lick her and sharing some snuggles. I know it will take time with Ella, and I love her and she's so adorable that I'm totally happy to give her all the time she needs, even if that includes some tough love, like giving her her penicillin injections (which seem to be working) and flipping her on her back, which she really doesn't like to check her belly (and to get her used to being picked up and flipped and such). She's a really good girl and I couldn't imagine our family without her.

She really is coming around to us. It seems that our weekend away made her fonder of us, because now she'll let me pet her while she's all laid out, relaxing and follows me around and even asks her Auntie Laurie for pets when she sees that Bennett is getting them. I'm so proud of her! Only time will heal her from her past, and we're more than willing to put in that time with her, because she's a beautiful bunny inside.

Here are some pictures of today's bonding. I must admit to posing them together for the picture, although right now they are cuddling side by side by themselves, but of course whipping out the camera right now would probably result in both of them fleeing to the far side of the pen and I really want them to cuddle, so no pictures right now. :)

Bennett saying, "Oh mama, let me out! I'm a good bunny, you should feed me again, not lock me in this little pen, even with my girlfriend!"

Mama posing them together, and neither of them really having it.

Just after I squished them together, Bennett either kissing her or looking for kisses (looks like the latter to me).

Both bunnies in the dating arena.

Ella, just chillin', a little indignant that she was being forced into a photo shoot without proper grooming...

A weekend at Santa Rita Abbey

This past weekend, Laurie and I attended our yearly Benedictine Oblate retreat. We normally attend the fall retreat but we had such a busy fall this year that it didn't happen. So, we were really happy to find out that there were still spaces on the retreat and that it was happening on a weekend that we didn't have any plans. The retreats that we have happen at Santa Rita Abbey, a Cistercian monastery south of Tucson, in Sonoita, AZ. We hold silence for most of the retreat, with the exceptions of dinnertime and one on one time with an advisor. There is also a closing activity Saturday night where we do not hold silence. We pray the Liturgy of the Hours with the sisters in the monastery's chapel but stay a little ways off from the monastery in guest quarters, which are beautiful and also hold a chapel, which remains open to us for prayer. Coming on retreat at this particular monastery is like coming home. It's so familiar and intimate and I always look forward to retreats. It was a lovely weekend, a much needed break from the "real world", which we really all decided as retreat members, that being on retreat, in spiritual communion was actually the real world, and not our homes and business that awaited us down the hill, into the city. Silence is a challenge that is well worth practicing and I came away from this weekend refreshed and it really added to my lenten experience.

Following are some picture of Santa Rita Abbey, taken by Laurie when we went on retreat three years ago, I believe.

This is the actual monastery, seen from down the road leading to the guest quarters.

The Santa Rita mountains, although while we were there this weekend, there was snow on them and they were covered in clouds.

I used this picture as my ravatar for awhile, it's the sun rising seen from the entrance into the guest quarter's building.

This last picture is the chapel in the guest building, where we met and prayed between Liturgy with the sisters.