bunnies certainly can get into mischief, as I've discovered on numerous occasions. No matter how careful a person is, these buck-toothed vandals seem to find ways around preventive measures.During my years of having house rabbits, I've been defeated many times by clever lagomorphs. In my debut memoir, When a Man Loves a Rabbit (Learning and Living With Bunnies), I wrote about how destructive my long-eared companions became at times. Here's an example of how I was outwitted by one determined bunny.
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Around that same time, Harry began to be quite a pest. Perhaps my being gone all day on Tuesdays and Thursdays, while I took a Windows course in Edmonton made him feel abandoned. He was especially naughty in April when he pushed a box to the PC desk, hopped on it and chewed a placemat. He also knocked the mouse off the keyboard shelf.
Fortunately, Harry didn't chew the cord through, but he almost bit the plug off. I thanked God that Pastor Wayne Sykes was able to solder the wires back together for me and it worked just fine. Then Harry nibbled a chunk out of the middle mouse button.
On another occasion, the sneaky wretch nipped the computer's keyboard cable. Thankfully, there was no electrical damage and I finally got the hint. I immediately covered all the peripheral cables with wire wrap and aluminum tape.
I did three things for Harry that distracted him from his destruction hobby. First, I turned half a box upside down, put a chair over it and cut doors in it. He had fun going in and out as well as peering at Gideon through the NIC barrier.
Next, I took a box lid and sat some water bottles inside. Harry loved the resistance when he tugged at the edges of it with his teeth. Lastly, I gave him a paper grocery bag and he loved hopping inside it and ripping the other end open.
All these distractions helped keep my lop-eared lad out of mischief, but it wasn't a perfect solution.
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When a Man Loves a Rabbit is filled with many more fascinating stories of life with house bunnies. These vignettes range from the tragic to the hilarious. Please click on the link to my books for details about both of my paperbacks. You're also welcome to contact me directly for more information.
When I was growing up, and our dogs and cat urinated in the wrong place or damaged something, my mother rubbed the offending pet's nose in it and said, "See that? No!" Then she slapped the animal smartly on the hind quarters. That didn't work. Besides conditioning them to be afraid of wires and other things you don't want them damaging, there's no sure fire way to keep them away except to close a door or set up some sort of barricade they can't penetrate.
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