And then when I woke up my pillow was gone.
When he came down to Los Angeles to live he had that head tilt issue, a common symptom of inner ear infections in rabbits. The corresponding dizziness made it hard for him to groom himself in the way he preferred, and it also meant that sometimes he just didn’t feel up to getting all the way to the litter box before taking a leak.
As a result, when Becky dropped him off, though she’d taken very good care of him, his undercarriage was in need of some maintenance. The horrible stuff stuck to his fur only took a couple days to get rid of. That was a priority: matted horrible stuff on rabbit fur can hide fly eggs, the presence of which (and subsequent natural phenomena I will not discuss here) is called fly strike, which is one of the frillion things from which rabbits can drop dead. I would flip him on his back in the crook of my right arm, work cornstarch into various clumps, slowly ease the cornstarch-lubricated clumps off of him, and then boil my hands. Every so often he would keep things lively by trying to escape. Putting rabbits on their back is supposed to “hypnotize” them, and Thistle, to describe whom there really should be a male equivalent for the word “dominatrix” — “carrot top,” maybe — does not submit willingly to such indignities.
Once that urgent issue was addressed, we started to address the more chronic grooming problems. His illness corresponded with a shed, and moving to LA — warmer than Pinole — started another, and so the little incipient mats that he could not curry off himself began to grow. I gave him a week or two to recover from the first round, then started on the mats.
Thistle is of the mini-rex breed. Mini-rexen have very thick, velvety fur. I tried for a while to work with a wire slicker brush like those used on cats, but it just wasn’t equal to the task. Looking online provided me with a bewildering selection of expensive mat cutter blades, bunny afro-picks, clippers and other such arcana, all of them rather pricy. Fortunately, I found a rather specialized tool in our junk drawer that worked perfectly.
The worst of the mats also required I subject Himself to the hated backflip. Eventually we got those worked out, a cubic centimeter of Gordian furball at a time. The trickiest ones were on his chest: he refused to let me in between his forelegs with the comb.
About two weeks ago I realized that I could reach his furry chest just fine with him just sitting on the floor. He even seemed to like it. What’s more, I found he would obligingly arch his back to let me comb his belly.
And so the grooming has changed from rabbit torture and humiliation to a pleasant daily routine for both of us. It’s calming for me to engage my primate need to groom something, it keeps him cleaner, and he gets attended to by a subordinate cringing on hands and knees. We’re all happier.
Bunny! Has he grown? Or is it just the angle of the foto? Also, he has a rather guilty look on his face. Has he been in Mr. MacGregor’s garden?
Thank you, Chris.
That’s a lovely, painterly shot too.
Thistle looks good and healthy. That’s quite a handsome bunny you have there. Beautiful photograph, Chris.
This photo is actually a year or two old. Thistle looks much the same, though he’s put on a pound or two.
Sweet bunny! These pet photos always get me. I’m still laughing about the bunny snack snarfing incident.
Great photo! I love his coloration. Brindlbunny.
Oh what a handsome bun!
thistle looks so regal!
:-) I live for Thistle updates. My rabbit never gets outside. Thistle is one lucky bun.
Thistle is my wallpaper at work today, and all the ladies are swooning over him. He’s a star, baby!
Pretty Thistle. *scritch, scritch*
Am I color-blind, or is that a very blue bunny?