My rabbit died

[PintoBean]

Hi Distracts,

I truly believe there is a cat for everyone. I can attest that my parents' rat terriers who do pursue the wild rabbits ignore the house cat and my cat when she's come to visit. You are doing the right thing, researching, acclimating the dog to cats. When you meet the right cat, it will be love at first meow!

 

[distracts]

Months later, pictures of Gwen. Just pulled from the ones I've uploaded to PS previously. She may have been tiny but she had such a ginormous personality. She was kind of a little showboat and always wanted to be near me and getting petted or sitting on my lap.

 

[movie zombie]

makes me want a bunny, distracts!

 

[azstonie]

Me too, I cannot believe how ADORABLE she was, you just want to give her a big kissy on that gorgeous fur!

What great settings you put her in, love the ear bows

And I remember how smart she was, what a wonderful rabbit!!!

I hope you are feeling better and finding some smiles in these great photos, distracts.

 

[FrekeChild]

Hugs distracts. What a beautiful bunny she was. I once had a bunny too, but I was terribly allergic. Bunnies are wonderful pets.

I hope that things are improving. Huge huge hugs. The loss of a cherished pet is always horrible.

 

[NonieMarie]

What great photos, she was precious.

 

[Polished]

Oh her ears! Would it be possible to be more adorable.

I've only ever had experience with pet rabbits once. There was a lady (I vaguely remembered her, she'd been a couple of years below me at the same school) at the play group I attended when our children were young. I heard her talking about how she thought their rabbits were better than cats as pets for them. One day she was going away with her children for a holiday, her husband worked very hard and she asked me whether I would come and look after their two white rabbits while she was away. I discovered her husband was Acting Prime Minister of Australia at the time. Over I went, with my children to look after the rabbits. The children jumped on the trampoline while I tried to put food and water into the hutch. I don't know how it happened but they were so quick, they ran out of the hutch and scampered off. The children and I spent ages pursuing them through flower beds but they would just dart off. Better than a cat for a pet! My ar@#. I felt sick to the stomach. Their owner was running the country and I couldn't even run a couple of rabbits. Defeated we left and the only way I could get a message to them was by calling the Prime Minister's office. Fortunately the Secretary was understanding and I soon got a phone call from PM's wife declaring what little rascals they were. I still felt terrible though, their children would have been upset and any neighbourhood dog might have come along and destroyed them or they would run far from home and we'd never see them again.

The next day I called my brother and asked him to help me. Before work we went over, he found both of them straight away among bushes, they were completely quiet and docile; he just picked them off and put them back into their hutch. I was so grateful and relieved.

About a year or so later my mother in law had won an award for Services to the Community and she invited me to attend with her an evening of drinks and nibbles put on for the recipients and their family. Former acting Prime Minister was there with his wife, although they had by then returned to live in the country area of Australia where they had come from. He told me unfortunately the dogs had got the rabbits. I felt a bit cross!

 

[LaraOnline]

I am so, so sorry Distracts.
Words cannot fill the space.
She seems to have been a beautiful little 'animal person'.
These 'wise ones' know so, so much more than appearance lets on.
I hope time will help settle you. Her pain is over now, she is at peace.
It is important to remember that your suffering is your own, not hers.

I am reminded of my special guinea pig. She died in childbirth.
She reached out to me especially the day before she died - she knew she needed extra care.
She was a very clever little animal soul and I will never ever fully recover from the tragedy of her life cut short.
If only I could have done more for her.

 

[junebug17]

So adorable, such sweet pics - I hope you are doing ok distracts.

 

[partgypsy]

Aw those pictures are beautiful and so sweet. I love the ones where she is sitting up with front paws up. One of my regrets for a cat my sister and I had, was that I only have a couple pictures, wish i had taken more.

As time goes on the memories of the good times will grow stronger and the memory of the pain will lessen.

 

[chrono]

What a cutie patootie. Thank you for sharing a little bit of Gwen with us.

 

[Calliecake]

Gwen's personality comes shining through in your photos of her. What a little beauty! I hope your doing well Distracts

 

[distracts]

Thanks everyone for your concern and support. I do feel so much better now. Still awfully guilty about how it happened, but, uh, I am supposed to move on from the guilt instead of just wallowing. I suspect I'll always feel guilty about it when I think on the end.

The husband and I are doing MUCH better. We are going to couples therapy every other week. I'm no longer upset and lashing out about the rabbit incident (up until the beginning of this month I was just, like, interpreting everything he said in the absolute worst way and arguing all the time), but we are continuing with therapy together because it's helping us have other conversations we sometimes struggle to have and come to a better understanding.

And, well, I got a cat a couple of weeks ago. Maybe I should start a new thread about that since this one makes me sad. After Gwen died, I was so torn up with guilt and kept wondering if there was anything I could have done with training the dog to prevent this more than I had already done. And I was super paranoid about getting a cat because I thought maybe my dog would just always go after anything. Well. Well, my friends. I took the leap. The dog shows only minor interest in the cat. She'll look at the cat, but is always able to "stay" and redirect her attention toward me almost as well as if there was no cat present. In three years with the rabbit she could never do that. The best we could do was to get her to stay for around five minutes at the door, but the stay broke if the rabbit moved. So I think the rabbit was just too much of a prey animal. (Currently the dog and cat are separated by a baby gate. The first time they saw each other was really the only time the dog pulled on the leash and flipped out - they both totally flipped out the first time, but now that the initial shock has worn off, they just want to occasionally look at each other while going about their regular business. We took the leash off the dog just a few days ago once we were sure she wasn't going to push on the gate.)

Polished - rabbits are tricksy like that! In my experience, they love nothing more than doing something they know is bad, even if it's inconvenient or upsetting to them. They just like to see you get pissed off!

 

[distracts]

I am so, so sorry Distracts.
Words cannot fill the space.
She seems to have been a beautiful little 'animal person'.
These 'wise ones' know so, so much more than appearance lets on.
I hope time will help settle you. Her pain is over now, she is at peace.
It is important to remember that your suffering is your own, not hers.

I am reminded of my special guinea pig. She died in childbirth.
She reached out to me especially the day before she died - she knew she needed extra care.
She was a very clever little animal soul and I will never ever fully recover from the tragedy of her life cut short.
If only I could have done more for her.

Thank you, Lara. Your comment really spoke to me.