Animal House, Installment I

The things we do for animals. Oh the silly, inane, bizzarre and selfless things we insist on doing for furry four-legged things that can't talk. And we do it because they're cute and fuzzy and oh gosh, so snuggly-wuggly.

I am a self-proclaimed animal lover. Not in an obsessive tack-postcards-of-baby-snowseals-to-my-cube-wall sort of way. I just love animals. They're cute and fun, and well, they ARE so snuggly-wuggly.

I have two cats. In fact you can read about one of them here on this crazy cat person congregation website. I haven't gotten around to creating Boo's cat page yet. Accuse me of playing favorites all you like. In reality I was just being lazy and didn't have a picture of him on my computer (without a big glass of wine as the focal point). Please! I may be a lush, but the crazy cat people don't need to know that.

That was like 2 weeks ago and I still haven't gotten around to fixing one up. BAD cat owner!

What is this? Am I digressing?

Anyway.

My two cats rule the roost at home, which is a reasonably large small, mediumly smallish but on the larger size apartment.

Enter husband.

He has a bunny. Bunny is a white albino rabbit about ye big (holding hands out for you to see - see?) and she has, up until now, lived at our house in the suburbs.

Yes we have a house in addition to our reasonably large small, mediumly smallish but on the larger size apartment. That will be covered in another blog. Maybe.

Since we only make it up to the house on the weekends, and over the summer that's not even true, bunny was starting to "act out" shall we say. If she was a child we'd put her on ritalin, plunk her down in front of the tv and feed her enough fatty carbs to weigh her ass to the couch. But come on, let's be serious, that would be considered animal abuse.

So we decided it was finally time to combine animals at the one location where we spend most of our time so we can give all fuzzy parties concerned the attention they need. And that would be the apartment.

So Tuesday night we fetched bunny from the house on our way back from Tahoe (for the 4th of July) and made the 2 hour trek to San Jose with her in the backseat. The husband dropped me at a cooking class and he went home to clean her up and gradually introduce her to the cats. Upon returning from my class the husband had just let bunny out of the bedroom and the cats were getting their first chance at either:

a) pouncing at her,

b) becoming fast friends and doing eachother's hair or,

c) staring at her like she's an alien that just flew in from the planet EatCatsAllDayLong

...a little background on the cats. They are spoiled. They are indoor only, fancy spensive cat food fed, frequently groomed, pet, and loved - spoiled. As far as they are concerned there are only two cats in the whole wide world, a tank full of fish, and two humans. Oh, and occasionally a "visitor" that they ignore.

...a little background on the bunny. She was raised with cats. She thinks she's actually a cat. She doesn't hop, she moves her back legs independently as if she were a cat. And she has a brain the size of a walnut.

So bunny, a crazy alien lifeform to them, hops around the room nonchalantly. Boo seems to think something is not quite right. But he's cool with change. It's really not a big deal. He stays where he is, she stays where she is, and that's just fine. Should she come too close he'll just kind of walk away making a worried "Boo noise" that only Boo knows how to make. Bartleby on the other hand. Heh. I had the misfortune of HOLDING him when the bunny was actually let out of her cage. Silly me, thought if I were holding him I might provide COMFORT or SANCTITY to the little brat. Instead I got a shredded arm for the effort.

Which of course prompts me to scruff him so he doesn't either leap on my head and scratch my eyes out or leap on the bunny and scratch her eyes out. So here he is, scruffed, angry, puffed up to the nines, starring at the alien with the bright RED EYES.

And then we all made a big mistake.

We laughed.

But is was FUNNY I tell you! The little snot was putting on a hilarious show of simultaneous aggression and downright fear. How could we not laugh?

Oh brother.

Bartleby hates the laughter. He hates the ridicule when it's directed at him. Imagine a small man with equally small parts. They just don't take the laughing so well.

So he's scruffed and seeming to relax a little, and then the laughter, and I can feel him tense and get angry. He looks me square in the eyes and hisses. So I realise now that the best course of action is to let him go and he can run and hide like the scaredy little brat I know he is. But the problem is, well, he's wound up tight like a little spring and when he's like that, when released, he usually scratches the hell out of something (me) before running and hiding. Seeing as how I already received my fair share of war wounds for the night I was hard pressed to go about releasing him in as delicate way possible.

I begin to lower him to the ground and he seems to be going with it. His eyes flick from me, to bunny, to me again. I can see his brain power is spread thin between trying to figure out how to get away from me AND avoid the horribly evil unidentified white thing with legs and red eyes.

And I'm giggling - SILENTLY I should add.

Then his back legs hit the ground and instantly back up they go to SCRATCH the HELL out of my forearm. AGAIN.

People at work are going to think I'm a Cutter.

I realise at this point there is no grace in letting an irate pointy object go - so I just open my hand and off he flies. Under the table.

He's a brave one. Scared of the little bunny rabbit.

Bunny, now returned to her cage, happily snacks on some hay. Totally unphased that she is now living with two predators in possession of very sharp claws AND teeth.

The cats, now rescued from the SCARY ALIEN, spend the rest of the evening staying far from the cage. Totally unaware that there now is plump juicy Prey living with them. Totally unaware that THEY are in fact the predators in this equation. Go figure.

One big happy family.