enough about humans

i'm all blah today...and tired of the up and down of my emotions...so i'm not talking about people today. i'm talking about bunnies...no, not the playboy type those nevada folks think of when they hear the word bunnies...i'm talking about bunny rabbits. it was incredibly sad when our fizgig died on may 27th...but his loss has also fucked up the rabbit dynamics at our house and i'm about d.o.n.e. with the whole lot of them...

fizgig was bonded to a male jersey woolie named willow. willow was ready to hop in the box with his dead partner when i put fizgig in the shoebox...he was not ready to be a single guy. so the next day, when i cleaned out and reorganized the rabbit room, i stuck all the rabbits together, threw the kids out there to referee, and watched how everyone got along. spot, who is a female rex, got along fine with everyone...which surprised me because she has always been a very dominant rabbit...kind of diva-ish, if you will...waaaay more dominant in the world of bunnies than i am in the world of people...frankly, she used to make me uncomfortable. but willow and mazzy, a male part rex, were a little feisty together. mazzy has been feisty with all rabbits for awhile now. he actually made me bleed pretty profusely once when i pushed him aside from attacking spot a few years ago...but i got him back...little fucker latched his teeth onto my thumb so hard that when i jerked my hand back, i ended up throwing him halfway across the yard. so there's some back story.

actually...a little more back story...i adopted mazzy to be a partner for spot. they are similar coloring, similar personalities, and would be so damned cute together. but once i built them a cage with a divider, they began attacking each other through the bars in the divider...even made each other bleed through one inch squares...so i said fuck it, and they've never hung out together again. until the day after fizgig died...well, there was the day i tossed him...but the two rabbits were cool together the day after fiz died.

ok...onward. i took all the cages out of the rabbit room and just put one divider in there...willow and spot on one side, mazzy on the other. everyone seemed pretty darned mellow. i'd seen a little grooming between willow and spot, which is the seal of approval, so i thought great, everybody happy.... but then i saw spot grooming mazzy through the divider bars...and i thought, huh? and the next day, the divider got opened somehow by somebun, and mazzy kicked the crap out of willow.

now, a side note. rabbits are cute and cuddly and fuzzy...yes. but they are also really damned ugly when they fight. i mean, when you are at the bottom of the food chain, there is no honor in combat. rabbits go for the eyes. and anything else they can get their very sharp teeth on. mazzy put a cut on willow's ear and took out a lot of willow's fur...but keep in mind, willow's a jersey woolie (which is a miniature angora) and has lots of fur to spare.

so, i decided to let spot and mazzy co-habitate and left willow on the other side of things, and tried to secure the divider better. but then i saw spot grooming willow through the bars. and, being as she's a rabbit and we can't really talk about how she's feeling, i'm not really sure if she just likes both males or if she's a "the grass is always greener" kind of gal or maybe she just likes starting shit, i dunno. but next thing i know, the divider's open again, and mazzy's kicking willow's ass again....this time he loses most of the fur around his eyes, gets a cut on his eye, loses a couple of big patches of fur on his body, gets some scratches...it was just ugly. soooo....

willow gets moved to my bathroom to heal at this point. and mazzy and spot get separated and screw it all for a few hours. spot and mazzy get the divider open again and happily share the rabbit room for three days...i mean seriously, there were some freaking cute moments. so i clean out the rabbit room again, reorganize again, remove all dividers, and set things up for mazzy and spot, the two bunnies i always wanted to bond but never thought would, to co-habitate.

so let me tell you how much it pissed me off this morning to go out there and find them fighting over the same corner of the room. fur everywhere...again. but they're a little more evenly matched and no one was getting their ass kicked...i am pretty sure spot could hand it to him if the old boy pushed her hard enough, though, just sayin... so now there's another divider, and the next rabbit that fights gets thrown in the backyard with the dogs.

ok, i'm just kidding about the dog part. and i was also kidding when i threatened to make stew out of one of them, for that matter. but the non-humans in this house are definitely having some issues and this human's getting tired of trying to cope.

willow, by the way, is still living in my bathroom as the teenager prepares him a spot in his bedroom. willow's just too social a guy to be left alone, and i'm afraid the fear of getting his ass kicked was just changing his personality, and not for the better, poor guy. so we'll let him hang out with the teen, who has long wanted a critter in his room, but is a little nervous about getting the one who sheds the way willow does. luckily, i have a mama friend in my cyber tribe who spins fiber, and once i get willow groomed up nicely (after he heals and all), i at least know someone who can benefit from our efforts to keep teen's room cobweb free. but that mama's a human, and i'm not talking about humans...oh, wait...i guess teen is a human too. well, shit. i guess i'll be done then because i'm talking about bunnies, not humans.

peace