Jan. 7, 2025
From the Vault: Responsible Rabbit Care Explained: with Marcy Berman, Save-a-Bunny Rescue
Bonus Episode From the Vault: The #4 Most Downloaded Episode of 2024!
While we’re on a break until Feb 4, we’re bringing back one of our listeners' all-time favorite episodes of 2024 from the vault!
Understanding responsible rabbit care is essential for anyone considering adding a bunny to their family. Join Amy as she interviews Marcy Berman, founder of Save a Bunny Rabbit Rescue, to discuss the complexities of rabbit care, the importance of spaying and neutering, and the misconceptions surrounding bunny ownership.
You'll Learn About:
- Marcy’s journey from discovering an abandoned rabbit to founding Save a Bunny Rescue.
- Common misconceptions about rabbits' needs and proper care.
- The challenges faced by rabbits in shelters and rescue environments.
- Why spaying and neutering rabbits is vital for health and population control.
- The emotional and physical benefits of having rabbits as pets.
- How fostering can help you better understand rabbit and small animal care.
- Ways to support rabbit welfare and advocacy in your community.
To Learn More About Save a Bunny Rescue:
- Visit: https://saveabunny.org/
- Follow on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SaveABunny
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CONTACT: Amy@StarlightPetTalk.com
Thanks for listening to Muddy Paws and Hairballs, your go-to resource for all things pet care. From dog training, behavior, and socialization to cat enrichment, pet adoption, and tackling behavior problems, we provide expert advice and real talk to help you create a happy, healthy life with your pets. Whether you're dealing with dog anxiety, looking for puppy training tips, or exploring enrichment ideas for your cat, we've got you covered. Be sure to check out all our episodes!
Chapters
00:10 - Rabbit Care by Marcy Berman
15:24 - Rabbit Care Challenges and Misconceptions
29:59 - Benefits and Challenges of Rabbit Ownership
39:07 - Common Reasons People Surrender Rabbits
50:25 - Supporting Bunny Welfare Through Awareness
Transcript
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Hey everyone and welcome back to Muddy Paws and Hairballs.
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We're taking a little break right now, but don't you worry, I haven't left you hanging.
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Between now and February 4th, we're pulling out some of the top episodes of 2024 from the vault so you can enjoy them again, or maybe even catch them for the first time.
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Today, I'm thrilled to bring you the fourth most popular episode of the year Responsible Rabbit Care Explained featuring Marcy Berman, the incredible president and founder of Save a Bunny Rabbit Rescue in California.
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If you've ever thought about adopting a rabbit or you already have one hopping around your home, this episode is packed with tips and insights that could make a world of difference in your bunny's life.
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Marci shares essential advice on rabbit behavior, nutrition and how to provide the best possible environment and care, because, as we know, rabbits aren't just cute.
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They're actually complex little creatures that deserve very thoughtful care and attention.
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So sit back and relax and enjoy this fantastic episode.
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And don't forget we're dropping new episodes starting February 4th.
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Until then, keep your ears perked for more gems from the vault.
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Now let's hop right in.
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My guest today is Marcy Berman.
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Marcy is the founder and executive director of Save a Bunny Rabbit Rescue, which is based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
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In 1999, while walking her dog, marcy found a domestic rabbit that had been set free, otherwise known as abandoned.
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25 years later, and 5,000 rabbits saved, marcy has become an international expert on companion rabbit rescue and rehabilitation, with a special focus on trauma, abuse and neglect.
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Marcy says that companion rabbits are very much misunderstood, they're underrepresented and they're unprotected.
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They are truly the underdog.
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So, marcy, welcome to the show.
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Thank you, thanks for having me.
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Well, I appreciate you being here and I know in your introduction I said that your foray into bunny rescuing began with a walking the dog scenario, and tell us a little more about that.
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You just happened upon a bunny on the sidewalk taking a walk as well, or how did that go?
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Well, I never thought I was a bunny person.
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I still don't even really consider myself a bunny person, but I was walking my dog and I saw a white and brown rabbit running around in the street and the only thing I knew about the bunny at that time was that the bunny was not a wild rabbit, because wild rabbits are not colored white because then they're target practice for predators.
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So I knew that she was.
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I found out she was a, she was somebody's pet, and it took me about an hour and a half to catch her.
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I didn't know anything.
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The only experiences I had had with rabbits were not good ones growing up, and so I had been doing some wildlife rehab with wild care and I took my dog home and I grabbed my wildlife heavy wildlife gloves and dog food because that's all I had I didn't even know what they ate and a blanket and a flashlight, and I went down and it took me about an hour and a half.
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I had to crawl under a car to get there.
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And so I got her and then I drove around to a guest safeway and bought all the supplies I thought I needed and of course they were garbage, because that's usually the stuff they sell at the stores.
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But the next day I went back and looked around to see who might've lost a rabbit and I I, this woman said, oh yeah, she, she's ours, but we don't want her, you can have her.
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And I had offered her 20 bucks.
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I'm like I'll give you 20 bucks for the bunny.
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She's like you can just have her, we don't want her.
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Wow, and so that started the whole lifetime achievement award for bunny rescue, I guess.
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And so she was an amazing teacher and I guess it was meant, and so much more sentient and opinionated and loving and just everything about her opened my eyes to how unique rabbits were.
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I had no clue.
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I thought they were these cute but not very bright animals that lived in a hutch in the backyard and that was about it, and they were dumb and I hate to say that, but that was really where I started.
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And so she was just an amazing, amazing being.
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And she wasn't with us that long.
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She was only with me for about six months because the pet sitter that I had hired, despite leaving really specific instructions, did not follow my instructions, and there's certain health issues with rabbits that you have to be very careful about.
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They're much more work than a cat or a dog, and most people don't think that, and so the rabbit passed away from a digestive problem.
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So that was a big lesson I learned, and then I make sure that everybody understands is that rabbits really require some extra care.
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So that's how it all started.
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And now it's been over 5,000 rabbits later.
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That's wild, and I mean rabbit rescues, not like breeding in my house of 5,000 rabbits, of course, because everybody here gets spayed and neutered.
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But that's how it started.
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That's great, that's great.
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So you know, it's not to say that we don't see.
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I mean, I do rescue as well, mostly cats and dogs, and I've got the occasional pony or donkey that's here.
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But why is it?
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Do you think that people think that it's just okay to let your bunny go, like they're disposable or something?
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I think there's a whole number of layers to that.
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I think it starts in that society itself, including the animal community, doesn't view rabbits as being as deserving or worthy as cats and dogs, so they do view them as disposable.
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That's how society does, that's how a lot of the shelters, especially the no-kill shelters, view rabbits is.
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They're sort of disposable, and so I think people also misunderstand Rupert's getting a little fussy.
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Yeah, for those of you who are lucky enough to be watching this on YouTube, you can see that Marcy is holding a bunny.
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That is so darn cute that he doesn't even look real.
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To me he looks like a stuffed animal and it just makes me wonder, like I can't imagine just setting him out to be predator bait, because that's basically what you're doing, I mean, unless somebody luckily comes along like you did and catches them or goes through all that trouble.
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I think a lot of people misunderstand that companion rabbits, these domestic rabbits, are non-native.
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They are not related to jackrabbits and cottontails, they can't even interbreed, and so people think that you take a rabbit and you set them free and they're just going to go and be fine, and they'll usually starve to death or get picked off by a predator.
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So they are not the same as our wild rabbits.
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They are descendants of European rabbits who were brought over hundreds of years ago.
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So that's, I think, a big misperception.
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Yeah, I hope everybody who's ever thought about doing that with their bunny now listens to that and hears that.
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I could understand how somebody might think, oh well, I see bunnies outside, so why can't my bunny go outside?
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I mean, I would never do it, ignorant or not.
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It's just not the right thing to do.
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But I could kind of see where their logic might come from.
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As far as I mean, obviously you've got a bunny rescue, you've rescued 5,000 bunnies.
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I mean, how big of a bunny rescue, bunny abandonment issue is it?
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What would you say as far as bunnies that are in rescues and shelters across the US right now?
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Well, it's hard to track because I know what I see and I know what my colleagues see in the shelters.
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But one of the issues is that rabbits fall in this gray area where farm animal people don't track them and dog and cat agencies don't track them.
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So at many shelters the euthanasia statistics and the intake statistics are dog, cat, other, which is also kind of revealing about what our society views as worthwhile companion animals or worthwhile animals to begin with.
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So rabbits get classified in with the snakes and the pigeons and the guinea pigs and the mice and everyone else and they're also equally worthy of being tracked.
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But I've had to push to get a lot of the shelters to track rabbits and I give kudos to San Francisco Animal Care and Control, Rohnert Park, some of the marine humane sites.
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They track their rabbits, but at most shelters they don't.
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And at a lot of shelters they don't even charge an adoption fee for a rabbit, which is ridiculous.
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And they don't spay and neuter, which, when you think about any animal that really ought to get spayed or neutered before they get adopted, it should be a rabbit.
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And so there's been legislation to make sure that animals in California are fixed before they go out to adoption, but they excluded rabbits.
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And so a lot of times some of the shelters that take in rabbits, they're so eager to get them out of their system that they just either adopt them out for free or they really don't screen.
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And so you know this is such a big topic that I could go on forever about this, and part of it is I place a lot of responsibility on the no kill movement movement for some of this, because no-kill sounds great, except that it really does mean no killing an adoptable animal, and adoptable is very vague, and so for places that are privately run that find rabbits to be problematic, they're harder to place.
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You can't make any money off of rabbit licensing and rabbit training, even though they can be trained.
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The shelters can make money off of things like that and they don't with rabbits, and so no kill only includes usually adoptable cats and dogs.
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So rabbits get left behind.
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They get left behind everywhere.
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They get left behind by the farm animal movements that left them out of Prop 2 years ago about caging.
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They said, oh, we'll come back for them, and then nobody did.
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And they get left out of legislation about fur.
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Even with AB44 in California, rabbits were used as a bargaining chip by some of the bigger agencies to say, look, if you pass this legislation to protect against fur animals, we'll back off on rabbits, because there's a big rabbit meat and rabbit fur lobby in California and so we ended up being one of the only groups that stood up for rabbits, and it's really frustrating.
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So it's hard to get a lot of change for them if the people that we would hope would stand behind rabbits are not there.
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Some are but there's a big push for dog and cat food made out of rabbit meat because it's a marketing.
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You know, lean protein.
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It's a lot of BS, honestly, because we've done a lot of research on hot and cold diets and we've approached places like Pet Food Express to ask them not to sell it or to sell it only a special order, and they basically said they make more money selling it than they would if we ask people not to shop there.
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So it's a big problem where rabbits, just nobody wants to deal with it and they're kind of where cats used to be, maybe 50 years ago, where cats were this misunderstood.
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Let them live outside, figure out their own lives, and so rabbits are way behind in that and I think people are afraid of them sometimes because a lot of people grew up with these rabbits that were outside, that were not fixed, that were probably really cranky, and so they.
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I didn't have good experiences, so they don't really understand how much rabbit medicine and rabbit behavior is moving into a much more modern time.
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By the way, before I go any further, I want to say that what I'm doing with Rupert holding him here, is with his permission.
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He is a prey animal, I am a predator, and so I'm doing what I usually don't do.
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I usually don't sit and hold a rabbit in front of people because I don't want them to expect that they are going to be able to do that with a prey animal and it's a matter of trust and he's being trained to be an ambassador bunny see.
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If he likes that kind of work, then he doesn't have to do it.
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But I don't want people to expect to be able to walk around and hold a rabbit, because it's a gift that they give us and it shouldn't be an expectation.
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Well, you've made several good points and I want to hit on that for just a second, because I've run into that issue and I think a lot of it goes back to just understanding not only the behavior of the species, of whatever the animal is, and not've run into this with little dogs before, where agencies won't adopt out a little dog because maybe they get a little nippy with strangers if a stranger tries to pick them up and it's like, well, if you think about it from the dog's perspective or from the bunny's perspective, they're kind of helpless and so they just get ripped off the ground by whomever and flung hither and yon, and it's like you wouldn't do that to a German shepherd.
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What makes you think that that's okay to do it to a little dog or to a bunny?
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Like you said, it's something that comes with getting to know the animal, building that trust, making the animal feel safe and within their limits.
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When he's decided it's done, you put him down.
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You don't force him to endure.
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And I don't really understand why people feel like they need to impose so much of their behavior on small animals.
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And then I also wanted to just jump back to before we get too far ahead is the whole, because now I want to call my shelters and see as far as the way that the numbers get counted.
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You're right, it's it's dogs euthanized, cats euthanized, and then I know wildlife got counted.
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But yeah, where does if a bunny had to be, or a bird or whatever it might be, did it even get counted?
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And that's something that you know, people should know, and I have a lot of issues personally with the whole no kill thing.
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The concept is awesome, but the way that it's being implemented has a lot of problems and that's a whole episode for another, another show, and that's a whole episode for another show.
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But you're so right and I think people need to hear that again that no kill doesn't mean things don't get euthanized.
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No kill basically means whatever they want to define it.
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As for a lot of organizations, like at one point one of the groups that I was working with didn't count wildlife as things that they euthanized and it's like, well, why shouldn't that count?
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It's sort of a shell game.
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It's like they can make it what they want to make it based on what they include.
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Don't include what parameters they put in.
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Well, whether it's healthy, who defines that?
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Whether it's behaviorally appropriate, who defines that?
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Do they even know what they're doing?
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So I have a lot of issues with no-kill.
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And then I also wanted to make a point too about what you said is about, about spay and neuter.
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And not only is it so important, I think, from the standpoint of bunnies having lots of bunny babies, but most people don't know how to sex a bunny.
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They don't even have a clue and it's not an easy thing to.
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It's not as obvious as a dog, let's say, let's just put it that way.
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And so you know, person gets bunny home, has no idea whether it's spayed or neutered, or knows for a fact it's not.
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Somebody told him it was a girl.
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So they get another girl and lo and behold, it's not another girl.
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And now they've got bunnies.
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You know, I bet you, that happens a lot.
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Well, people ask me about Easter time.
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And is Easter terrible?
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And Easter, you know, has the potential to really bring in people, to educate them.
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But what happens is and it amazes me that it happens every single year You'd think it would not happen, but you would think it would not happen all the time.
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But people go and they get the two girls that the pet store or the breeder is so sure that they are two girls and they're hard to sex.
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Rabbits are hard to sex when they're under about seven to eight weeks.
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Now, most of the time it's illegal to sell an animal or adopt an animal out who is unweaned.
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However, rabbits get placed way too young because people want little, which is also a whole other thing.
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You really don't want little, you want big, you want a big mellow bunny.
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So they want to get these bunnies sold or placed while they're little.
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And they're really not weaned until they're about seven to eight weeks old, and a lot of times you'll see them being offered up at three to four weeks old, which is terrible it's terrible, but again, they're not protected, and so when you get animals that young, they never especially rabbits they don't get enough of the proper nutrition and they don't get the healthy bacteria that they need from the mother's milk, and so they grow up with problems.
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They grow up with digestive problems, and they're just not as healthy as they should be.
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So what happens is is, at Easter, people go out and they get two baby bunnies for their kids or their girlfriend or whatever.
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And then rabbits become teenagers at about three months old and it's very easy to sex a male rabbit once their testicles descend, because you'll probably end up cutting this out, but they are very well endowed.
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Okay, you cannot miss what's going on down there if you know what you're looking for.
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And so as soon as the testicles descended, around three months, the males are fertile, and so they're also fertile for a month after you neuter them.
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So what happens is is that people go out.
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They might neuter their male, maybe not, but the males start I mean the males and females start to become dominant and humpy and things like that, because they're teenagers, and so the girls usually can get fixed around four to five months old.
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But you get teenage rabbits who are really acting up or breeding right around Christmas time.
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So the Easter bunnies end up dumped at the shelters at Christmas and there's a lot of unwanted litters.
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There's a lot of teenage rabbits that were these very sweet baby bunnies that have turned into little teenage monsters who are hormonal and they're acting like a rabbit should be at a teenager and they must get fixed Now.
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another thing with rabbits getting altered is that a lot of vets won't see rabbits because rabbits need special anesthesia.
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So the Bay Area we have a lot of really good doctors but say you're in the middle of nowhere.
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There are not vets that know how to do this and rabbits are fragile under anesthesia.
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And so they don't want to spay and neuter the rabbits because they think the rabbit's going to die.
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So they end up not fixing the rabbits and sending them out intact.
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We've had rabbits come in from shelters that have been there left with another male.
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They give birth from being in a shelter, intact with each other and that's just creating more of the same problem.
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But if you get your free rabbit on Craigslist and then you want to go get her fixed at a private vet, it's going to cost you between $600 to $1,000 to get your bunny fixed because of the anesthesia.
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There are no grants, there's no freebies, there's nothing out there for rabbits.
00:21:07.258 --> 00:21:15.538
So we get them fixed through our veterinarians and it's not quite as expensive as that and a lot of the better shelters spay and neuter.
00:21:15.538 --> 00:21:20.477
But someone who gets their free rabbit off of Craigslist is not going to go spend that amount of money.
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And then if you don't fix your rabbit, they especially the females, they have an 80% chance of getting cancer by the time they're three.
00:21:31.176 --> 00:21:49.355
So we see a lot of rabbits who end up in the shelters, who are five or six years old, that were dumped by people and when we get them in to get spayed they have masses, they have uterine masses or mammary masses or something, and then we get them out and then they have a 50-50 chance.
00:21:49.355 --> 00:21:59.410
But it's really sad and all of this is preventable if you go to a rescue to get your rabbit and you get a little bit educated before you go out and get a pet.
00:21:59.509 --> 00:22:03.659
I try to remind people that rabbits are very similar to horses.
00:22:03.659 --> 00:22:21.945
So horses require a lot of money, expert care and they're not easy, and so rabbits and horses are actually more similar in a lot of ways than rabbits, cats and dogs, because both rabbits and horses are prey, they have similar digestive systems.
00:22:21.945 --> 00:22:25.900
Whereas horses might get colic, rabbits will get bloat.
00:22:25.900 --> 00:22:28.968
Rabbits' teeth grow throughout their whole life.
00:22:28.968 --> 00:22:34.767
So there's a lot of urban myths that you have to cut the rabbit's teeth and you don't.
00:22:34.767 --> 00:22:36.742
You absolutely do not want to do that.
00:22:36.742 --> 00:22:43.689
Some of the rabbits that are fancy breeds end up with bad teeth because they're made to look a certain way.
00:22:43.689 --> 00:22:46.144
They smush the face in, they flop the ears.
00:22:46.144 --> 00:22:49.882
You know floppy ear rabbits are not natural, they're man-made.
00:22:50.363 --> 00:22:54.717
A prey animal is made with floppy ears, where they can't see and they can't hear.
00:22:54.717 --> 00:23:04.698
But rabbits are not a basic starter pet at all and they're not great for kids either, and I really wish that this is.
00:23:04.698 --> 00:23:19.852
One of my biggest wishes is that other groups that work with other animals would step up and help, because it's really asking too much of a couple of small rabbit rescue groups to educate the whole world about rabbit care.
00:23:19.852 --> 00:23:21.844
Yeah, and they're just.
00:23:21.844 --> 00:23:24.896
There's not the resources, there aren't grants, there aren't.
00:23:24.896 --> 00:23:30.278
You know, there's no Maddie's Fund, there's nothing other than individual donors.
00:23:30.278 --> 00:23:34.287
It's just very hard to get the word out about them.
00:23:35.134 --> 00:23:46.743
Well and I know I mean that's one of the reasons we're doing this podcast is not just this episode per se, but the whole podcast itself is all about education to get pets good homes and keep pets in good homes.
00:23:46.845 --> 00:23:56.098
And I think it's so important that people hear what you said, because I think so many people do think that bunnies are a starter pet and they're not.
00:23:56.219 --> 00:24:04.522
If you're doing it right and I think that's the key, the expense and the care is all about giving the proper care for the animal.
00:24:04.522 --> 00:24:13.188
We just did an episode on the five welfare needs of animals, just in general, and the fact that people really need to educate themselves.
00:24:13.188 --> 00:24:25.044
I mean there's plenty of information you can find if you're looking for it proper information about bunnies and what's the appropriate habitat, what's the appropriate diet, why it's so important to spay and neuter them, et cetera, et cetera.
00:24:25.044 --> 00:24:29.865
And people just need to educate themselves and not do this spontaneous.
00:24:29.865 --> 00:24:41.656
And I'll be the first one to admit I did it when my and it wasn't really for my daughter, it was really more for me as an animal person but I was coming out of a Kmart because I was getting my daughter's baby pictures.
00:24:41.656 --> 00:24:54.798
This is 30 years ago, okay, and getting her baby pictures or it probably was an Easter picture or something done, because she was born in March and there was a guy with a pickup truck and he had a crate full of bunnies.
00:24:54.838 --> 00:25:00.760
And when I say full of bunnies, I'm talking about don't, don't, don't tell me yeah, cause I already know yeah.
00:25:01.121 --> 00:25:23.895
So I felt so bad for the bunnies, especially one that was on the very bottom of the stack, that I just basically bought him right there on the spot, had not planned, and I'm an experienced animal care person and I'd worked for a vet for eight years, so I knew some of the basics but I certainly didn't know all of what needed to be involved and I also didn't realize how long bunnies live that bunny.
00:25:23.895 --> 00:25:29.797
I think the bunny well, let's put it this way long bunnies live that bunny.
00:25:29.797 --> 00:25:33.488
I think the bunny well, let's put it this way it lived long enough that I want to say it was over 10 years that it lived.
00:25:33.488 --> 00:25:47.102
I mean, it was a long, a long commitment and a lot of things that you have to do to make their life worthwhile, for them to live, and living in a hutch or you know, or in a fish tank in somebody's bedroom is not a life for a bunny rabbit.
00:25:48.163 --> 00:25:49.064
No, it's terrible.
00:25:49.064 --> 00:25:55.111
And then also there's a lot of really bad information out there about bunnies.
00:25:55.111 --> 00:26:23.739
And if you really want to learn about rabbit care and I would bet you to some extent that this is, and I'm just putting it out there, it's probably similar with other rescue groups is, if you really want to know the most accurate information, the most modern, the most cost effective is to look at a rescue group, a good rescue group's website, not a breeder website, because breeders, their whole philosophy is different.
00:26:23.739 --> 00:26:33.362
Theirs is about what the rabbit looks like and how to keep the coat shiny and what the show quality is and all that kind of stuff.
00:26:33.362 --> 00:26:36.147
And a lot of it is very old-fashioned.
00:26:36.335 --> 00:26:38.219
4-h is really old-fashioned.
00:26:38.219 --> 00:26:40.021
It's an agricultural group.
00:26:40.021 --> 00:26:43.855
They have meat pan rabbits, they have meat rabbits.
00:26:43.855 --> 00:26:48.616
So these agricultural groups and these breeders put out bad information.
00:26:48.616 --> 00:26:51.903
Plus, there's bad information out on the.
00:26:51.903 --> 00:26:54.756
You know the internet anyway for stuff.
00:26:54.756 --> 00:26:59.248
It's almost like if you were to go on the internet and you said, how do I parent my child?
00:26:59.248 --> 00:27:04.847
You would get a million different things and some of them are good and some of them aren't, but the way the-.
00:27:04.994 --> 00:27:09.265
Yeah, you'd really want to know the source and the legitimacy of the source.
00:27:09.906 --> 00:27:19.763
Right and rescues are trying to deal with medical issues, behavioral issues for the least expensive way they can and the longest lasting.
00:27:19.763 --> 00:27:24.615
I have several volunteers who've had rabbits that live to be over 16.
00:27:24.615 --> 00:27:39.557
I have a 15-year-old rabbit who's here and they can live a really long time, and so you want to be prepared for that financially, space-wise, emotionally.
00:27:39.557 --> 00:27:43.388
You need to know you're getting into a major commitment.
00:27:43.951 --> 00:28:02.897
And so when we have people coming looking to adopt a rabbit for a child, we want to make sure that the parent is really into this, and so if they're not, then foster homes are a great option because that helps us free up space to rescue other rabbits and then people have a good experience.
00:28:02.897 --> 00:28:10.500
We also will select the foster, so we will put in bunnies that are harder to place or shy or they need something.
00:28:10.500 --> 00:28:16.298
So it's a win-win that they foster and then they're not in it for 10 to 15 years and that's fine.
00:28:16.298 --> 00:28:30.169
But it is a problem when people get their kid a bunny and their kid is 16 or whatever, and the bunny gets dumped at an older age at a shelter.
00:28:30.169 --> 00:28:31.369
They grieve.
00:28:32.296 --> 00:28:35.461
People don't understand how emotionally complex rabbits are.
00:28:35.461 --> 00:28:42.116
They're very, very sensitive and emotionally intuitive.
00:28:42.116 --> 00:28:52.990
So it's hard on them when they get dumped and they do grieve and they can grieve to death when they lose their friend or they're dumped at a shelter somewhere and feel abandoned.
00:28:52.990 --> 00:28:55.222
Oh, you know I was going to mention something.
00:28:55.222 --> 00:29:13.161
One of the things that I try to do when I'm talking about rabbits you'll probably notice this is that I always say he or she, even if I don't know the sexes, even if I don't know the sexes, I won't use the word it only because I want to avoid somebody looking at a rabbit as a it.
00:29:13.221 --> 00:29:22.428
We've talked about some of the challenges, obviously, in caring for bunnies, and that they do require a significant amount of care and understanding and education.
00:29:22.428 --> 00:29:24.740
What makes all that worth it?
00:29:24.740 --> 00:29:27.708
Why do you feel like bunnies are such great companions?
00:29:28.634 --> 00:29:34.416
Well, I think they're great companions for the right home, they're not great companions for everyone.
00:29:35.019 --> 00:29:42.710
That's a good point is that they're not for everybody, but let's say for the person that's done their homework and knowing how to provide for their needs.
00:29:42.710 --> 00:29:46.638
What are the benefits and what are the challenges of having a bunny as a pet?
00:29:47.200 --> 00:29:50.724
Well, there's a lot of benefits and challenges.
00:29:50.724 --> 00:30:02.477
The benefits are that they're incredibly smart, much more than you would think and actually the closest media representation for a rabbit is actually Bugs Bunny.
00:30:02.477 --> 00:30:04.700
That is really pretty accurate.
00:30:05.320 --> 00:30:07.363
They are naughty.
00:30:07.363 --> 00:30:12.308
That's why you have to have a sense of humor, because they just can't help themselves.
00:30:12.308 --> 00:30:13.611
They're really curious.
00:30:13.611 --> 00:30:23.855
Once they put their mind on a project, they are fixated on that project, which means say, they want to get in a room of your house that you don't want them in.
00:30:23.855 --> 00:30:29.699
They will watch you and wait until you go away and then they will find a way in.
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