Volume 4, Issue 4 - November 2004

Tributes to Our Bunny Companions

"Grieve not, nor speak of me with tears, but laugh and talk of me as if I were beside you. I loved you so . . . ’twas heaven here with you.”

We often receive letters from adopters whose bunnies have passed on. These letters are heartfelt and quite touching. They recount the love and happiness that the bunnies have brought to their families, and they mourn the loss of a dear companion. We would like to share one of them with you.

Bungee
by Cheryl and Mike Leverington

It was the shredded wheat! Sure, he liked carrot chips, and kale, and other stuff, but I'm pretty sure it was the shredded wheat.

We got Bungee when he was three and a half, and he had had a difficult time. He had his own opinions about who should clean in or near his cage, and he was definitely a bachelor bunny, a fact easily found by looking at the scars in his long lop ears after Nancy LaRoche tried to pair him with a couple of other bunnies. It took a little while, but he settled down and accepted us, even though we did allow other bunnies to live in HIS house.

BungeeAll the bunnies lived good long lives. We lost Spot first, and then Angel a year or two after that. Angel lived on pure love and attention, so she made it all the way to eight years old. But Bungee, well, he kept on going. Even when we started noticing the weakening in his rear legs, he simply wouldn't give up. He wanted to come to the kitchen and play on the floor, but he started falling down, so we put a piece of carpet in our kitchen. He kept coming, and he kept playing--After all, the reward was always there. After a while, he couldn't make it from his bedroom to the kitchen, so we had to carry him. He still played, as much as he could.

The one thing he always craved was his beloved shredded wheat. He knew he would get a couple of them in the morning at breakfast, and he would get some just before his dinner at night. When he started getting a little dehydrated, we backed off on the (dry) shredded wheat and tried to replace it with carrot slices. It worked for a while, but it just wasn’t the same. He wanted his shredded wheat . . . and of course, he got it.

Little by little each day, his legs got weaker, and he needed to rest a bit longer between each hop. Still, he held on for quite a while. He almost made it to his 10th birthday. By God (and shredded wheat), he gave it a better try than we could ever imagine. I have never seen a more courageous animal of any kind, in any environment. Over that last weekend, we noticed that he was having difficulty getting to the hay and water in his cage. He was letting us know that it was time, and we took him in.

He is running and playing with the other bunnies in Heaven now, but I'll bet I know what he sat up and asked God for as soon as he got there!

We miss you, Bungee. We thank Nancy and everybody at the Colorado HRS for enriching our lives with you, and Angel, and Spot. It took about 15 Kleenex to write this, and we need to recover a little more. However, we've found a rabbit rescue group here in Reno. We have already visited so we could scratch some bunny noses, and we know we will be bunny parents again in the next few months.

Not all the bunnies like shredded wheat, but if we find one who does, I think Bungee would be happy that we shared his treasure.

A Note About Shredded Wheat: When he was much younger, Bungee was sitting up begging when I had Cheerios in my hand, so I gave him one. He liked it. However, Cheerios, like almost every other cereal, has things added, like sugar. It took a while to read all the cereal packages, but we found that shredded wheat had no sugar and was the one with very little added stuff. We don't think it did any harm, and in Bungee’s case, there is a possibility that it has life-extending characteristics.

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