Compelled to Create

All of the animals except for man know that the principle business of life is to enjoy it.

Samuel Butler

Snowpea; July 03–November 08

Saturday night, about midnight, we had to put Snowpea to sleep. He had jumped out of Jim’s arms and landed on the ceramic tile very hard on his hip, which broke his back. A broken back can be a real danger with rabbits. They can easily get spooked and take a fall like this. Over the 20 plus years that we have had rabbits we have had several close calls, but have never had a serious injury. 

Snowpea was the most skittish rabbit we’ve had. He had gotten much more used to people over the four years we had him, but was still the most difficult to handle. Snow was the youngest rabbit we had right now (just over five) and has been the healthiest. It was a heartbreaking loss. 

Snow had a big year. At the Colorado HRS Spring Fling he “campaigned” for the “Marshmallow Look-Alike Contest.”  Marshmallow is a children’s book featuring a beautiful little white rabbit. Snow won the contest and received a huge prize package!

Here is his “campaign button” and his prizes. His “girlfriend”, LeNoir, was quite confused about who these prizes were actually for. She believes everything is about her! I don’t know where she gets that from!

Snowpea

Snowpea and LeNoir checking out the loot

LeNoir has been having a more difficult time with this than I expected. She is very independent and has often been mean to Snow, especially when it came to food. But he always adored her. We left his body with her all night Saturday. I didn’t sleep any, and checked on her about every hour or so. Every time I looked, she was sitting perfectly still right next to him. On Sunday, I let her out to run around in the living room. She kept running out there, thumping loudly, running back to the kitchen to look at him, then back to the living room…over and over. It seemed she was trying to get him to come play with her. It’s was very sad (for all of us). 

We began the year with four rabbits (we’ve had all four for about four years) and now only have two. We had to put Zeus to sleep in February, he was two weeks from being 12 years old (which is pretty old for a rabbit). The house seems very empty. 

Thank you Snowpea, for giving us four years of fun. You were one of the best bunny-dancers we’ve ever had!