Takara

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Takara came to us on July 12, 2006

Ok folks, I didn't plan to take in another bunny.  This just sort of happened!  My son and I were driving home from Walmart and coming up to the Brampton Animal Shelter along the way.  I said, "Hey, wanna stop in and pet the bunnies?"  Famous last words ...

I go in and almost immediately spot this fluffy ball of fur.  A German Angora bunny as cute as any bunny you've ever seen.  Knowing I really shouldn't even ask, I inquire if its a boy or girl.  Thinking in the back of my mind that maybe I could bond a boy to my two girl bunnies.  They check and figure its a girl.  Well, I said, that won't work but we start talking bunnies and I guess hearing I foster for Rabbit Rescue and I knew a lot about rabbits, they ask me to take the rabbit.  If it works out, keep her free of charge.  If not, I can bring her back so its sort of a fostering situation.  It turns out they are in the middle of renovating the building and in desperate need of room to house more animals.  They're turning away surrenders and had an incredible number of cats and kittens.  Another issue I could see was that the staff just didn't have the time to brush this little girl and she certainly needs a good brushing every day.  The place was full of people, even though it was a weekday afternoon, so all the staff were super busy.  They had her in wood shavings which was all over her (you can see in one of the pictures) and her fur was matted.  They asked me to please take her, they'd give me the extra large cage she was in and all the accessories.  Looking at her I couldn't say no.  So there I was with another bunny :o)

She took a couple of hours to get over her shyness but when she did, oh boy!  She sat for 2 hours while I brushed her.  If I stopped she'd start to get up but then sit right back down again if she felt me brushing again.  I got her cleaned up pretty well the first night and then had to clean the house because of all the wood shavings that came out of her fur.  I switched her to wood stove pellets and she was easily litter trained.  She is so well behaved, no issues at all with chewing.  So she has never been caged here.  I got her health-checked immediately by our wonderfully bunn-savvy vet in Acton.  She was in perfect health, though a bit underweight, at just over 5lbs she's very bony.  She was spayed and after a dopey day or two, she was back to her normal happy-go-lucky self.

She loves to be pet and is very people oriented.  She zooms out from wherever she's been hanging out as soon as we walk in the room, almost tripping us.  When I first brought her home she would race down to the end of the couch, then back up to me, climb up on my chest and give wet bunny kisses all over my face.  I guess she was happy to find a home.  She's almost always right by my feet or under my chair.  What a cutie!  She absolutely loves company and will go up to just about anyone visiting to nudge them for pets.  She sure isn't a bunny you can ignore!

She loves her hay and fresh veggies.  At first she wasn't overly keen on the treats, but that's changed considerably.  She now loves banana, Craisons, apple chunks, oat groats and lots of different dehydratred fruits.  When she eats banana her bum twitches (I've heard of other bunnies that do this).

Her name is Takara which in Japanese means "precious treasure". :o)

We had a bit of a scare with Takara at the beginning of September, 2006.  We found a lump while grooming her.  We had it removed and it was determined after testing to be a benign tumour.  After her surgery Takara had staples which she was not allowed to bite at, but desperately wanted to, so she had to wear a cone for several days.  To say it didn't go over well would be an understatement.  The same day she had the surgery, probably because she was still doped up on painkillers, she was practically doing back flips trying to get the cone off.  She kept getting it off and we had to get a couple staples put back in that she pulled out.  We then got a better cone that she couldn't get off.  Of course I had to get some pictures of her in her cone, despite her embarrassment at having to be seen in it ;o)