Adventures in Bunnysitting

While I've been in Charlotte I've been called on pet-sit quite a few times. The former intern turned associate pastor and his wife live about half a mile away from me and take more vacation time than me. They also happen to have two rabbits and a cat. Since I happen to like animals and I'm usually in town when they're out of town, I've become their default pet-sitter.

They happened to be out of town this past weekend. I said I'd do it even though I knew it was going to be a crazy weekend. This was the only weekend we were showing our church musical and on top of that was church business as usual. Needless to say, I was a bit busy and all I really could concentrate on was the musical and church.

The first couple of days went well enough. This is pretty low maintenance pet-sitting. They confine the animals to one room, the rabbits are in cages, and the cat isn't one of those that tries really hard to escape, she just meows with annoyance about being cooped up in the room. All I basically do is feed them and make sure they have enough water, and the automatic litter box is functioning properly.

However, after I wandered over on Sunday after an incredibly long day at church (we had our usual three services, previews for the show at the services, our final matinée, and striking the set) I was treated to a surprise when I arrived at their place. Somehow, one of the rabbits had gotten out of his hutch! Oh no...

I have no idea how it had gotten out (probably negligence on my part forgetting to close the hutch). But now I was staring at a pile of bunny bedding and bunny droppings on the floor, not to mention a loose bunny running around the room. Now, other than feeding these rabbits and commenting how cute the rabbits are that live around my apartment complex, I haven't handled rabbits. Which means I have no idea how to catch them and pick them up. So, I have a loose bunny on my hands and no idea how to catch it and redeposit it in its hutch. The bunny stops hopping, I reach in with my two hands for the side, I hesitate wondering if the bunny can bite me if I pick it up on the sides, and it scampers off to a different place in the room. I realize how ridiculous my initial thought is and try again only to hesitate again at the same position and the bunny scampers off to another part of the room near the cat.

The cat is definitely not happy about the situation. She's a prissy persian who acts like she owns the room and having this bunny now hopping around in her space does not please her. However, the bunny is quite clueless and stops with his face inches away from the face of the cat. The cat starts hissing at the bunny and the bunny sits there, oblivious that this cat is not pleased with the bunny's freedom. However, I think the cat also realized that this bunny could probably kick its butt because, again, prissy cat vs. fairly fast, fat bunny. Therefore the most that the cat could muster was a hiss or two in the bunny's face. The bunny didn't even react. He just stared innocently at the cat as if to say, "what?" I take a quick pause from my attempted bunny catching to laugh at the whole cat vs. bunny situation.

Then, again with the chasing. Bunny stops. Can I grab a bunny by the scruff of its neck? Reach. Pause. Dammit, there goes the bunny again. Lather, rinse, repeat. Finally, I have the bunny cornered by the cage. I hesitate yet again. It hops away... into the cage! I slam the door shut and that's that! Whew! Needless to say, the past few days I've double and triple checked that it's cage is properly shut.