Rabbit + Water + Soap = RAGE

Sometimes, Stipple gets stinky. This is to be expected, since he's not always the greatest at grooming himself. Usually, I just spritz him down with a waterless shampoo and comb him out. He dislikes this quite a bit, but will tolerate it. But this is not always enough. That's when Stipple gets a bath.

Stipple HATES baths. He starts to panic as soon as he hears the water running. This means that I have to use one hand to hold a squirming rabbit down in the tub while using the other hand to check the water temperature. After his initial squirm fest, Stipple tends to give passive resistance a try. So suddenly he goes incredibly still and starts to look like he's going into some sort of emotional shock. If you stop bathing him and release him even the slightest bit, he explodes into action, attempting to race out of the bathroom and leave soapy water and fur all around the apartment. Thankfully, he's not gotten out of the tub on any of these attempts. I've learned that I need to keep a firm hold on him while he's "shocky"(he's not really in shock, he's basically just playing dead), and get as much of the bath done while he's not putting up any resistance.

Usually the end result is this:

The world's angriest, cleanest, wettest rabbit.

He's raging out sooooo badly. He's probably going to cut me in my sleep one night...

Happy Birthday, Stipple!

Tomorrow is the one year anniversary of getting Stipple. Since Stipple's got a completely unknown background, and I have basically no idea how old he is, I'm considering this anniversary to be his birthday. Tomorrow, I'll give him a big slice of banana to celebrate. Today, I'll post some pictures to show how the year went.

When I first got Stipple, he was terrified and wary.

"I don't know who you are, or what you want." ~Stipple on his first day home

He would spend a lot of time relaxing far away from me, but where he could always see me.

Eventually, through the use of bribery with treats, and Stipple's realization that I feed him, Stipple started to not mind me coming to his cage.

Eventually, Stipple realized that humans weren't terrible. He started to come up on his own to investigate new humans.

And Stipple started to regularly check up on me, if I'd been studying too long without paying him enough attention.

Occasionally, he now shows overt affection without the use of bribery. 

Now he is my partner in crime, helping me study for my exams while keeping me sane.

Happy birthday, buddy. Picking you up right before finals last year was one of my best decisions. Thanks for a wonderful year.

Happy Easter

Stipple disapproves. He might be a bit big for the basket.

Study Buddy

So I have been going through quite a few test-heavy weeks, so posting has come to a stand still. What does Stipple do while I'm being so boring and studying all the time?

He sleeps in his part of my desk's bookshelf.

He flops over and rests....

And he does some light reading of his own.

Inappropriate Rabbit is Inappropriate

So..... my camera is le broken. There is going to be a shortage of pictures until I can either a) get it fixed, or b) get a new camera. I'll be depending on my computer's webcam, previous pictures, and my phone's camera in the meantime. Since pictures are scarce, I figured I would blog about something Stipple does that I do not have pictures of (for somewhat obvious reasons).

Stipple is an intact male. Intact males, kind of have inclinations (though, depending on when you neuter an animal, a castrated animal may still have these inclinations since he has learned it's a pleasurable behavior). Usually, this is not an issue. Stipple may consider me his life partner or something like that, but I'm not a female rabbit.

Turns out, I'm not a female rabbit until I'm working out. It started innocently enough. I sometimes do pilates or lift weights in the apartment early in the morning. When I do, I let Stipple run around because he'll spend most of the day in his cage while I'm at school. He usually just runs around (laps, usually), occasionally dancing and grunting. Early on, he would just come up to me when I was doing crunches and start licking my arm. Just my left arm (evidently my left arm is oh so sexy), only when I was doing an ab workout, and only licks.

After a few months the licks started to progress into Stipple grunting circles around me, licking my arm, and then trying to mount the arm. *facepalm* Thankfully, he's not the greatest at figuring out how to mount my arm if I keep moving how the arm is situated. Also thankfully, he usually gets frustrated after a while and goes and pouts in the bathroom or a little bit away from me so I can see how "emotionally hurt" he is.

For the record, it's really hard to concentrate on a workout when you have a horny bunny bouncing all over you.

Stipple, up to something inappropriate, no doubt...

I did end up taking Stipple to the vet last month. He's healthy, though he's got a Pasteurella multocida titer (probably from his outdoor escapades when his previous owners dumped him). Since there's only a 50% chance that he's humping would stop if castrated (probably less than that, since he seems to know it would be enjoyable if I would just keep my arm still for once), and he hasn't started marking yet, I'm probably going to keep him intact. We'll see how that goes. Joy. More horny rabbit humps. :/

When a rabbit wants attention....

Rabbits are kind of a mix of a cat and a horse (the world's tiniest horse, of course). I will probably talk about this ad nauseum in different posts, so now you've been forewarned. In this post, I want to talk about how rabbits like attention. Like cats, rabbits like to be largely left to their own devices and to observe you. Stipple loves chilling out under the couch, watching me and Rooms study. At various times of the day, he'll switch his vantage point.

Stipple, chilling like a villain in his couch fortress.

Every once in a while, like a cat, he'll hop up and get your attention. Usually, this means he pokes me with his nose. Unlike a cat, and more like a horse, he'll shy away from you if you try to touch him when he's poking you. This can lead to some confusion on my part, since he occasionally comes up and repeatedly pokes me, but runs away before I can tell what he wants.

Sometimes, Stipple REALLY wants your full attention. That is when this happens:

Followed by:

MOM PAY ATTENTION TO ME!!!!

Well, fine then. I'll leave.

I'm still not certain what he wants from me when he does this. Sometimes he gets so frustrated he starts trying to dig a hole. Of course, since he's on me, that means I get to play the role of the dirt.

One day I'll figure out what he wants when he does that. Until that time, all I can say is you can tell when a rabbit wants your attention.

Boytoy and the Bun-Bun

My boyfriend and Stipple have an interesting relationship. They both like each other, but there's definitely some weird male-bonding component to it.

Boytoy likes to feed Stipple "carpet hay". "Carpet hay" is the bits and pieces of hay that fall on the carpet when I'm feeding Stipple, or that Stipple throws outside of his cage while he's tearing through his hay piles like a land-shark. Stipple, in response to Boytoy's offerings, usually takes the hay and throws it on the ground of his cage. Sometimes, he'll even stop eating his dinner to take the "carpet hay" just to throw it away. Occasionally he'll eat it, much to Boytoy's delight. Boytoy maintains that Stipple eats the hay most of the time, but I haven't seen such evidence.

The other thing Boytoy loves to do with Stipple is "poke the rabbit". Boytoy will find wherever Stipple is and gently poke him. Stipple used to run away, but now he sits and lets himself be poked. This actually has made it really difficult to get him out from under things, since he doesn't mind being gently poked and prodded. Apparently, the attention from poking has helped the two of them bond.

Stipple really likes Boytoy. I'm actually surprised by how much they like each other. Today, while I was cleaning Stipple's cage, I saw Stipple and Boytoy, nose to nose. Boytoy was petting Stipple, who was licking the carpet in ecstasy (a post on Stipple's relationship with the carpet will be coming some time in the future). Later, Stipple hopped up on the couch between me and Boytoy and checked on Boytoy before coming over to say hi to me!

I am happy the two major men in my day-to-day life like (dare I say "love"?) each other.