Recently, a dear friend gave me a book entitled "Rabbits: Gentle Hearts, Valiant Spirits" as a gift. It's essentially a collection of short stories about bunnies in desperate situations and the people who rescued them. Following each story, there's a relevant paragraph or two that contains some excellent information about the care and feeding of house rabbits.

The individual tales themselves are both touching and heart-wrenching at the same time. A number of the stories were difficult to read, particularly the one about the bunny with head tilt. Overall, I think that the book does an excellent job illustrating how wonderful and dare I say, magical, our rabbit friends can be. Though the stories mostly focus on the plight of each bunny, one does walk away from the book with the knowledge that there are people out there who will go to great lengths to save their furry wards. And that is an excellent thing.

Put this one in the "Another reason why bunnies are awesome" column. A bunny named "Rabbit" saves his family from a fiery death.

You can read the article here.

Last night, Pelé inexplicably took a turn for the worse. He experienced a round of seizures before becoming very listless. His breathing was labored and raspy. We drove him down to the emergency clinic in Blue Ash as fast as we could, but he passed shortly after arrival.

He was a wonderfully sweet bunny and a joy to be around. Even though he stayed with me for only a couple of days, I miss him terribly. My only consolation is that he spent his final days with people who loved him rather than alone in the backyard of that hellhole of a house in Trotwood.

It's always the little ones who pay for the stupidity of the dregs of society.

I was able to let out some of the bunnies that were rescued from the house in Trotwood. Pictured below are: Blossom, Carmen, Halo, Pelé and Tobie.

If you live in the Dayton area, you've probably heard about the story where 240 animals were rescued from a home in Trotwood. Of course, Dayton Rabbit was there to help the shelter out. A total of seven bunnies were rescued from the house on thursday night. We worked that evening to get all of them situated in clean cages and provided them with food and water.

Friday morning, I took a day off and went to to help clean the bunny cages. I was then able to give them all a cursory exam. Six out of seven bunnies are pretty young at about eight weeks old. Most of them, though dirty, were in good health. But, a couple exhibited some nasal discharge which is worrisome. Thankfully, our favorite vet is coming in this morning to give them an exam. Hopefully, some antibiotics will clear things up and the buns will be good as new.

I'm going to bring my camera in today and plan on taking some photos so that you all can bask in the cuteness.

Last Saturday afternoon, I got a call from a woman who had contacted the shelter about a bunny in her front yard. She was worried that the little guy would go into her neighbor's back yard and get killed by the two dogs that live back there. I grabbed a carrier and headed over to her house.

When I arrived, the bunny was sitting on her front porch munching on some lettuce that the woman had put out for him. He was a medium sized bun, black and weighing I'd guess about 6 pounds. Even thought, I approached him very slowly, he took off running around the side of the house and into the lady's back yard. I was starting to get a little worried, because her back yard butts up against a pretty busy street and I didn't want him to run out into traffic.

I recruited her husband to help me herd the bunny back towards the front yard. But, of course, the bunny wasn't having any of it and decided to run into a neighbor's open garage. I followed him inside to find that he had squeezed in behind the work bench. I knocked on the door that led into the house and asked the homeowner if he would mind shutting the garage door. I explained about the bunny and asked for his help. With the garage door closed, the homeowner used a crutch to sort of prod him out from behind the work bench.

The bunny decided that he'd had enough prodding and made for the garage door to escape, but much to his dismay, he found it closed. I swear that the expression on his face was palpable when he encountered the closed garage door. The expression of "DOH!" could be read as clear as day. You could almost see him deflate.

At that point, I was able to scoop him up and carry him out to my car. I thanked the homeowner and took the bunny back to my house where he stayed for a day until I could take him to the shelter.

As it turned out, the bunny, whom we named Indy, is as sweet as they come and will make someone an excellent companion.

The weather was awesome on saturday, so I let two of my fosters out to get some sun. They were abandoned in a cardboard box by the front door of the shelter. They are both female and are absolute sweethearts. They're staying with us for the time being so that we can give Isabelle her medication.

The other day, the wife and I headed out to the Beavercreek Tractor Supply to pick up some wood stove pellets for the bunnies. Normally, I go to the one south of us on Rt 73, but on that day, we went to the one in Beavercreek. Upon arriving, we were disappointed to learn that they were completely out of stock. So, after a call to the Springboro store, we got into the car and were on our way.

Now, the fastest way to Springboro from Beavercreek is via the interstate. And with gas prices being what they are, that would be my normal route. But, for some reason, I decided to take the scenic route through the farmlands in and around Bellbrook and Waynesville.

The strange chaining of events continued as we approached Springboro. You see, in the center of the road, was a mother duck who had been hit by a car. Racing back and forth from the double yellow line to the berm was her brood. It was a pitiful sight really and we felt absolutely terrible for the little fellers, especially since we're really fond of ducks. Cars were slowing down to try and avoid hitting the little guys, but with the distracted manner that people now drive, I'd have bet that they wouldn't last long. Since the ducklings were in a bad spot located at the bottom of a dip in the road with no place to pull over, there wasn't much that we could do but move on.

We arrived at the Tractor Supply shortly thereafter, feeling a little depressed about the ducklings. I parked the car and reached for the handle to open the door. I glanced to my left and noticed that the vehicle parked next to me belonged to a county wildlife officer. Now you have to understand that I almost never see these guys. As a matter of fact, I can't recall the last time I saw one. But, there was his vehicle, sitting right next to me. A little "hooray!" went off in my head and I rushed inside to find him browsing lawnmower and wheelbarrow tires, or maybe it was wagon tires. I'm not really sure what they were for.

Regardless, I explained to him about the ducklings that were just a few miles down the road and he told me that he would head over and see what he could do to care of it.

As I got back into the car, I asked the wife what where the odds of this happening? That the Tractor Supply we normally don't shop at would be out of pellets which would force me to travel to another store. That I would feel compelled to take the long route even though I was thinking of all of the gas I was wasting throughout the entire drive. That we would see the plight of the ducklings in the center of the road only to run into someone who could actually do something about it just a few minutes later.

I don't know if I believe in "bizarre" coincidences, or that I was meant to "rescue" the ducklings, but for me, the string of coincidences that happened that day were difficult to ignore.

The weather this afternoon was extremely pleasant. So, a couple of us decided to spend our lunch hour at the shelter. We set up a pen and gave each bunny some time to bask in the sun. Many binks were performed and much grass was sampled by all. The bunnies pictured below are: Fergie, Howard, Magnolia, Magnus and Snowball.

I had a good time at the adopt-a-thon this saturday afternoon. The turn out wasn't as high as I'd liked to have seen, but it was still fun hanging out with some fellow DARN members. Unfortunately, our attendance didn't actually translate into an adoption, but we did get many opportunities to talk about bunnies and bunny care. If we opened up at least one person to a bunny's potential, it was well worth it.