Two years ago, I found myself unexpectedly promoted to rabbit ownership, cornered by my children’s hopeful faces and a tiny, black, lop-eared furball who came to be known as "Buster II Scruffy-Buster".
I’d had rabbits before, with mixed success.
The escape artist, Buster the First, chewer of carpets and furniture, still haunts me.
But this Scruffy Buster was different: a house-trained mountain-rabbit patrolling the backs of couches, the master of his home-made hutch who fought incarceration — bedtime exclusion from living-room to hutch on the back lawn — with sudden, well-timed aggression.
"How come he’s so angry, Dad? my daughter asked one such evening, keeping the pressure on her wounds.
"Sweetheart, he's a male rabbit," I said frankly.
"All he wants to do is run around and get among it with lady rabbits but he can’t because he’s stuck in a hutch all day.
"That’d make anyone a bit toey."
My daughter’s solution was simple of course.
She wanted to get him a lady rabbit.
Our Scruffy Buster was cut down in his prime.
One night last July I picked him up to take him outside and noticed a marble sized lump under his little rabbit-chin.
"Poor little bugger," I thought, "That’ll be an abscess, from a tooth infection.
"That’ll need x-rays and anaesthetic and surgery and antibiotics and it still might not save him."
I paid $85 at the first available vets appointment to learn it was an abscess from a tooth infection that would need X-rays, anaesthetic, surgery and antibiotics and still might not save him.
Unfortunately for Buster, the whole point of a rabbit is low-cost, low-maintenance.
We were offered euthanasia for $120 but I said if it came to that I’d do it myself with a round of .22 for 35c but I didn’t gel with that either.
If it were me, I’d choose life with a painful tooth infection, and who knew — maybe it’d resolve itself?
But I wasn’t counting on it, and there was also the sad fact he’d never been able to perform his leporine prerogative.
The following morning I got online and called every pet shop and possible breeder between Invercargill and Timaru.
An Invercargill shop passed my number to a local rabbit owner who called and heard Buster’s story.
We agreed I should take the two-hour drive from Balclutha to meet next day at Elizabeth Park.
The plan was simple: this nice young lady would take Buster home to put among her two lop-eared females.
She’d call when she thought he’d done right by both of them and with any other news, and I’d come and pick him up.
"Two females," I explained to my kids, who understood the situation, "That’ll take his mind off his toothache."
Correspondence followed, describing dubious news the rabbits’ enthusiasm outstripped their competence, and 10 days later a call came to say Buster was no more.
He was in a bag in a freezer for two weeks until we could pick him up.
He’s buried now at the foot of an apple tree, a poignant reminder none of us know the hour nor fashion we shall hop off into the hereafter.
A clear month later, a photo from the Invercargill connection of a rogue black pompom was followed by a flurry of furry arrivals.
No less than eight bouncing bunny-kittens were uncovered, a tribute to Buster and the oversight of a wise breeder.
Seven survive.
More than three months after dropping Buster off we were back to pick up his progeny.
My conditions had been to have the pick of the litter and the short end of the split if there were an odd number.
We took home two chunky, thriving females and my choice, the one who’d been first discovered, the rogue pompom roving the garden like he owned the place, the runt male and only fully black-furred bunny of the lot, exactly like his father.
Notwithstanding the triggering tragedy, the unmitigated and rapid success of the whole harebrained scheme is almost as eerie as having an exact copy of a rabbit now occupying a hutch that was empty for three months.
Anyway, his sisters, each worth up to $200 have moved to my children’s family farm, and I have some bonding to do with this "Buster III, Randy—Buster".
