Taking a Rabbit for a Walk

A number of years back I had a pet rabbit, a very unexpected Christmas gift from my sister. She was a family pet that had been brought in to a wildlife awareness center my sister worked for at the time, and she needed a home. She had come bearing the name Marshmallow, presumably because of her fluffy white tail. She was a soft beige coloured New Zealand white.

I had never thought about having a pet rabbit before this. I love animals, but the only pet rabbits I had seen were confined to pens or cages and that didn't appeal to me at all. I am more of the let it run around the house or yard persuasion. I sure wouldn't want to be stuck in a cage 24/7, particularly one I couldn't move around in much.

Marshmallow came with pedigree papers. She was a show rabbit, something I was definitely not into. She was a regal looking bunny, as far as rabbits go, with her large stature and beautiful fur. I renamed her Wilhelmina Marshmallow. One of the Dutch queens had been named Wilhelmina, and I thought the name befitted her rather nicely.

Christened with a new name and new home, she quickly became the queen of her little palace, which happened to be my little college apartment. The apartment was actually 1/3rd of an old Victorian home that had been sectioned off into three rentable units. My cousin lived upstairs from me at the time, and the entrance to her place was through the back screened door and up the back stairs.

There was a small back enclosed entry way that led to my back door and up to my cousin's place. That was where I kept Wilhelmina's cage, right outside my door, but she rarely spent much time penned up.

She was a sociable creature. As rabbits go she was large, the size of a small cat and she always made her presence known. She wasn't a mild mannered lay back sort of bunny, content to just sit quietly in her cage. No, Wilhelmina had to be wherever the activity and the people were.

Knowing that she could do some major damage on things with her teeth, I sometimes had to confine her to her pen while I went to a class. She never had to be alone very long though with my classes spread apart across the school week, plus the fact that my cousin sort of adopted her too. Often I would get home from school, go out to get her, and find her upstairs being stroked on my cousin's lap or hopping around her apartment.

Wilhelmina had that sort of appeal. She was friendly and easy to love and hold, which surprisingly not all rabbits are. She sought out human company, but that is understandable since we were the only company available to her.

The image of rabbits are either as pests that invade property destroying crops and plants, or as cute, sweet and harmless. One of my good friends had pet rabbits and one in particular was downright nasty at times. I got a nice finger bite once, when it didn't want to go back in it's cage after a free run time. After that I didn't want to be around if it was out. Those little teeth can nip a lot harder than I realized at the time.

Even rabbits can have moods and different personalities. I guess also, having been a show rabbit, Wilhelmina was used to humans touching her all the time, so she had grown quite fond of those strange two legged giants in her life and she attached herself to me very quickly.

Most of the time she was out in my apartment hopping around in fits and starts, checking everything out over and over again. I had a cord type phone that came with the apartment. It was the clunky old fashioned kind with the big heavy ear piece and base. The dial tone it had was a distinct deep voiced hummmmm. I usually had it on the floor near the couch where I sat working, reading or watching television. Wilhelmina had a fascination with that telephone. If I wasn't using it, she would hop over to it, knock it off it's hook and quite literally put her ear to the phone to listen to the hum. Then I would hang it back up in the cradle and watch her dart cross the room in these funny little spastic spurts. A few minutes later she would come back to knock the phone off and listen to it again. It got to be quite humorous watching her do this over and over. It was a bit like watching a child throw things down from a highchair and sitting there in glee as mommy or daddy has to rush to pick it up, over and over again. It is very entertaining for the child and apparently was for Wilhelmina too. When I would finally tire of that game and put the phone up high, where she couldn't reach it, she instantly found other ways to entertain herself.

She liked to be held and stroked, and it was very soothing and relaxing for me to do that for her. She would snuggle down onto my lap, sink her little long eared head down so that her neck disappeared into a roll of soft fluff and close her eyes. She was sort of like a cat with long ears, but had more of dog's demeaner and personality. Cats just sort of nonchalantly appear on your lap, expecting that if they show up there you will of course be at their command and begin to gently stroke them. Wilhelmina, on the other hand, was like my current, very loved, dog. If I wasn't petting her when she wanted to be, she did everything in her power to get me to begin.

At first she would stand at the edge of the couch by my feet, occasionally nuzzle my leg with her nose, trying to get my attention. When that didn't work, she would stand on her hind legs against the edge of the couch with her front legs rested on the seat of the couch, like she was trying to get up. Then she would look at me as if she were saying, "O.K., I know you see me here, so what's the deal, pick me up already." After awhile she would give up on that endeavor and hop up on the couch herself, climb right up on me, and put her little nose against mine. It was almost as if she was saying, "You have no choice now. You love me, you know you do, so here I am in your face, PAY ATTENTION!" Being the tender hearted person that I am, I always fell for it and she got her way.

Wilhelmina followed me everywhere like a puppy or a toddler. She simply had to see what I was doing and in what way could she make it involve her. Anybody looking in would have gotten more than one chuckle watching me move around the house, with my little furry fluffy tailed shadow, leaping in her funny little spurts behind me.

She knew where I kept a jar of treats. This wasn't her regular food, but had things like raisins in it. I kept it on one open display area of an old white kitchen cabinet, that reached from floor to close to the ceiling, in a house that had very tall ceilings.

The oversized cabinet had a small clearance near the top between cabinet and ceiling. Either my cousin or my roommate had decided it would be funny one day to set a dead stuffed rat up on top of the cupboard ,with it's little face peeking over, looking like it was about ready to pounce down on me. I'm not overly fond of rats, to put it mildly, so needless to say at the time I was not very amused. In fact it made me jump back in cringing disgust, until I realized it was the dead stuffed rat one of them had found somewhere; I don't remember where.

Wilhelmina would see me walking towards that cabinet counter and would speed up just in case it meant I was getting her a treat. If I stood there too long, she would start to nuzzle and butt her nose against my ankle and lower leg, then when no treat appeared and I was still standing there, she would stand up leaning against my leg. Sometimes I would walk over there on purpose to test how long it would take her to realize I was at the magical treat spot and make a beeline for my leg to beg for something sweet. She was a smart little cracker and very quickly had me trained to entertain and feed her. She would very gently nibble the treats out of my hand, tickling me as she did.

Often when I got home, if I wasn't quick enough to suit her getting to the back door to let her in, she would gnaw at the base of the door frame to let me know she was ready to come in now and hurry up. Thank you very much. When I moved out I left everything clean and in good shape but the base of the door frame was gnawed through . Wilhelmina was not shy about making her needs and wants known to me or anyone else, but she had a very endearing and persistent way of doing it that was too cute to be resisted.

She loved being around me, but wanted company while I was gone, so next best to me was my cousin. Sometimes when I got home and looked out the back door to find her, she would hear me arrive and dart out my cousins open door to bounce down the steps, one by one, to get to me. I would look over the edge of the steps, which were open on the side, and watch her. When she got to my face level, she would stop and scoot over to my face and nuzzle against my nose for a minute, like she was kissing me in greeting, then quickly hop down the rest of the steps to follow me into our apartment and all over the place again.

When I went to get a big bag of her pet food from the pet supply store nearby, I saw a display of leather harnesses and leashes. I thought they were for dogs, but when I looked more closely, realized they were for rabbits. There was one beautiful red leather harness and I decided I was going to buy it.

I had taken Wilhelmina out front on the grass or in the back parking area a few times, before I bought the leash and harness, but she was an explorer and would dart into the bushes where I couldn't get her. I was afraid one of the zillions of free roaming cats and dogs in the neighborhood might think she would be a good target to go after. To me she was this innocent sweet thing, but she probably could have defended herself somehow, if she had to. Still it made me nervous, and I was also worried that she might get into one of her leaping moods and bound into the street or in the way of an oncoming car, so we didn't go out front very often.

When I got home from the store with the leash and harness, she of course had to check it out to see what I was holding. She snoofed and wiggled her nose at it trying to figure out what it was, since it had to be something for her. I was showing it to her, after all. I wanted her to be able to get outside with plants and grass and fresh air, so this was our solution.

I didn't know we were going to become the social attraction we, or I should say Wilhelmina became, every
time we went out for a little walk. From far away, people would think I was walking my little dog, but they would get closer and get a really surprised look on their faces, then often come over for a quick chat. Even the ones that didn't want to bother, would watch in curiosity when they walked by and smile, then I would catch them turning to look back as they walked on, as if to reassure themselves that they had indeed seen a rabbit out for a walk.

We made some new acquaintances that way, and sometimes if someone drove by from the neighborhood and saw us out in the front yard, they would come over for a quick hello or chat once they parked their car. They started recognizing me too, not just Wilhelmina , the star attraction, but they always asked where she was when they saw me outside walking around or just sitting in my front yard without her.

I always did like to do things differently and taking a rabbit for a walk was very different. She didn't walk along the way a dog does. Her version was hop, stop, hop hop, stop, hop and on every stop she had to sniff and look. Needless to say we weren't on any walking marathons, but it got her some time to be outside and oddly enough make more two legged friends, and my little bunny Wilhelmina Marshmallow became quite a social butterfly.