Bunwatch: My passion for rabbits

Feb 08, 2023

Looking sharp on Tuesday, February 7, 2023 at 7:45pm.

Monday was a Bunday. Coincidentally, my Duolingo practice served up this phrase:

Ich muss mit meinem Kaninchen zum Tierarzt gehen.

Translation: I have to take my rabbit to the vet.

Starting Monday morning, Bun had no interest in food. Instead, she lay extended on the floor in a bunny trance of extreme stillness. As I touched her back, I could feel waves of shivering. Not eating. Not moving. This seemed to be a GI issue.

Rabbits usually eat all of the time, most of it extreme fiber in the form of grass hay. It’s imperative for them to keep their GI tracts moving, especially since they do not vomit. I was afraid that she had GI stasis. Every rabbit owner is terrified of this condition, during which the rabbit’s GI tract essentially shuts down. Untreated, a rabbit can die in 24 hours. Even treated, a rabbit can die.

I tried a few potential remedies in hopes of jumpstarting her GI tract: rubbing her back and belly, tempting her with treats, giving her baby gas drops. She did not improve over an hour or so, and I called White Rock Veterinary Hospital. These are the friendly professionals who had fixed Bun’s liver lobe torsion a year ago. They asked me how soon I could bring her in and told me it would be a drop off.

So, Bun had a spa day at the vet.

Back at home after the drop off, I laundered all of her blankets and vacuumed the rugs. I changed out her litter boxes. I tossed unused toys, cardboard, sticks, and pine cones. This burst of activity helped my mind stay occupied as I awaited the vet's call.

X-rays fortunately didn’t show an intestinal blockage, but her GI tract, while not 100% stopped, was not as active and strong as it should have been, as evidenced by the strength and frequency of pulses. The vet wanted to keep her for observation for the afternoon.

Just in time for rush hour, we headed back to Pflugerville to pick her up along with her collection of pharmaceuticals. When we released her to her home habitat, she was a little tentative at first, but eventually ate and drank and hopped around. Today she’s as perky and cute as can be.

My moments of introspection have gone something like this: Was that new bale of hay bad? Something in the water? Did she get cold last week during the freezing weather? What about that Pothos plant she was nibbling on?

I may never know the answer, but my obsession reminds me of orchid lovers described in Susan Orlean’s book: The Orchid Thief. How does the intensity of my passion for Bun stack up against orchid aficionados?

I believe that rabbits are inscrutable and, as such, perfect and superior to other pets. I acquired Bun knowing that she’s living her life on a knife edge.

From a nursery owner in the book:

You know, I decided that orchid people are too crazy. They come here and buy an orchid and they kill it. Come, buy, kill. I can’t stand it. Fern people are almost worse, but the orchid people are too—oh, you know. They think they’re superior.

Once I gained Bun’s trust, I was supremely happy.

Carlyle Luer, the author of The Native Orchids of Florida, once wrote of the ghost orchid: “Should one be lucky enough to see a flower, all else will seem eclipsed.”

I’ve authored an extensive checklist for Bun sitters. She is not in my will, however. Nor do I expect that she will outlive me. Gulp.

Many people who collect orchids designate an orchid heir in their wills, because they know the plants will outlast them.

Once I started reading about rabbits, I was hooked and knew I needed to have one of my own. After the Parsley Episode, I doubt I will acquire another rabbit during Bun’s lifetime. Furthermore, unlike the “stingy rewards” of the orchid, I derive joy every time I interact with Bun, not just once a year.

Every orchid lover I met told me the same story—how one plant in the kitchen led to a dozen, and then to a backyard greenhouse, and then, in some cases, to multiple greenhouses and collecting trips to Asia and Africa and an ever-expanding orchid budget and a desire for oddities so stingy in their rewards that only a serious collector could appreciate them—orchids like the Stanhopea, which blooms only once a year for at most one day.

I’ve devoted a substantial portion of our porch to Bun’s condo. She has also taken over my former office area inside.

One magazine recently reported that a customer of one orchid kennel in San Francisco had so many plants that he was paying two thousand dollars in monthly rent.

It’s hard for me to get away.

I heard about a collector who had two greenhouses on top of his town house in Manhattan where he kept three thousand rare orchids; the greenhouses had automatic roof vents, gas heaters, an artificial cloud system, and breeze-stimulating fans, and he, like many collectors, took vacations separately from his wife so one of them could always be home with the orchids.

I love Bun but would never die for her.

Orchid hunting is a mortal occupation. … In 1901 eight orchid hunters went on an expedition to the Philippines. Within a month one of them had been eaten by a tiger; another had been drenched with oil and burned alive; five had vanished into thin air; and one had managed to stay alive and walk out of the woods carrying forty-seven thousand Phalaenopsis plants.

I interrupted an entire day of mine and implored Chris to spend multiple driving hours to address Bun’s health concerns. We spent a bunch of money but didn’t cross state lines. I would do this again.

A ranger at the Fakahatchee once told me a story about a woman from Georgia who had called one morning and asked if there were any ghost orchids in bloom in the swamp. The ranger told her he had just spotted a few flowering near Deep Lake. This woman was madly in love with ghost orchids and said she would go anywhere to see them, so as soon as the ranger told her this, she got into her car, drove to Atlanta, caught a flight the next morning to Miami, rented a car at the airport, drove to Fakahatchee, got directions from the ranger, and spent the next several hours hiking toward Deep Lake, toward the ghost orchids. Less than a day had passed since the woman had first called, but orchids are changeful things, and by the time she reached the plants their flowers had shriveled up and were finished for the year. She took a long look at the green coil of roots that remained. Then she turned around and hiked out of the swamp and returned to Georgia that afternoon. I assumed that woman had been disappointed to have traveled all that way for nothing. The ranger said no, she hadn’t seemed disappointed at all, and in fact she had told him she was glad she had come, and she made him promise to call her anytime he saw a ghost orchid flowering; she would happily come back again.

Lagomorpha

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