Hopping into new territory

I’ve always been a cat person. In the past there was Nicky, Boots, Greg, Smudge and Casey.

Now we have Coco and Smokey.

Recently I was cleaning out a cabinet and gasped by what I saw tucked in the corner. It was Mr. Puppy! Mr. Puppy was the little stuffed animal I had given my cat Casey when he was a kitten so he wouldn’t feel lonely when he was home alone. You can even see the patch of “fur” missing from where Casey had licked the side of the stuffed animal so much. I cried when I pulled Mr. Puppy out from his hiding place and held him close to my heart. My cat Casey died a couple of years ago after being a part of my life for 18 years. I still miss him.

I’ve never caved in to getting a dog. We once came close to having a duck when years ago my oldest son tried to bring one home from the exhibition. And there was the pet frog my youngest son had adopted when he was quite young. He dragged me out to the driveway where this pitiful, flat-as-a-pancake, dried-up frog lay in the driveway.

“Can I bring him in my room?” he had asked.

“Ummm…it looks like he’s sleeping,” I said.

These days we have a new addition to our household. I’m not sure how this happened but I got suckered into letting my youngest son keep a rabbit as a pet. And for some reason my husband wasn’t completely against the idea either.

“Didn’t you have a pet rabbit when you were a kid?” Justin asked his dad. “I bet you miss it.”

That’s right kid. Go for the empathy vote.

I will admit Kodak is cute. Messy, but cute.

But did I mention he poops? A lot?

I have to say in those moments it diminishes some of his cuteness shine.

We’ll take him out of his cage to let him hang out with us. From there is goes like this: Hop. Hop. Poop. Hop. Hop. Poop. Hop. Poop. Poop. Hop. Poop. Poop. Hop. Hop. Poop.

This is accompanied by Justin and I constantly asking each another, “Why does he have to poop so much?”

Fortunately it doesn’t smell and comes out as a dried pellet. But still. Enough with the pooping!

We’ve been trying to litter box train it. Apparently you can train rabbits to use a litter box like cats do. Lately it’s been working – at least when he’s in his cage. Someone told me the other day they saw a video of a rabbit vacuuming his poop. Our goal isn’t as lofty.

As we’re not rabbit people, we’re still getting used to this pet. Early on Justin, while read- ing a brochure and seeing what the lifespan of a rabbit is, says to me, “You’ll have to take care of it when I move out and have my own house.” Then he quickly changed his mind. “Nah, I can’t leave him. He’s my childhood pet. I’m taking him with me.” His childhood pet? “You’re 15 and we’ve had him for two days,” I reminded him at the time.

I will say one day last week I was ready to call Guinness as the bunny had been running loose in a room for 30 minutes and had not pooped once. I felt as if we had set a world record.

I’ll admit, though, watching him bounce around in those 30 minutes had left me feeling quite exhausted.

Or, dare I say it, pooped.