Run, rabbit, run!
Sunday, July 27, 2008 My daughter has two rabbits, Ringo and Sadie (left). Earlier this week I was minding my own business when I heard - through an open door - a snuffling noise in the garden. I looked up from my newspapers and a small black mop with droopy ears popped into view. In its footsteps lolloped another ball of fur - this one soft and grey. Yes, Ringo and Sadie had burrowed out of their run and were making a slow yet heart-warming bid for freedom.
How long they would have survived if I hadn't spotted them is a matter of opinion. We'll never know. It took a while - and several circuits of the garden - before I was able to catch them (much to the amusement of my next door neighbour who offered me his Jack Russell to "round them up"), but catch them I eventually did.
Truth is, I've always had mixed feelings about keeping animals in cages. We currently have rabbits, guinea pigs and a hamster (our fifth in a row) and I have always bought the largest hutches/runs/cages available, but I still feel a bit guilty. I wish we had a large walled garden and the rabbits and guinea pigs could run free during the day and return to their hutches at night.
On the other hand, it's been pointed out to me that they all live a largely stress-free life. Food is never an issue and they are 99 per cent safe from predators. They never have to make life or death decisions because everything is done for them by their well-meaning if (occasionally) over-attentive guardians.
Not a bad life, then. But does it remind you of anything?
Reader Comments (14)
A lovely little article, Simon, thank you. Reminds me of the never ending always changing zoo of my own children. And all the work it involved for me.
Our rabbit episode was particularly colourful. As a lone parent, I had no car. We travelled by bus to the nearby town to buy our first rabbit and generous cage with no way of getting them home. Always prone to biting off more than I could chew, I hired a rowing boat and began the long journey home via the canal. The sun was hot, the wind was against us, the willow trees nearly knocked all into the water and my arms and shoulders started to scream with pain. I thought we would never get there and began to panick but bravely never showed it, of course!
Finally we reached the outskirts of our village and spotted a bank low enough. We managed to disembark although all concerned expected to drown. I made the grand gesture of losing the £1 deposit on the boat and pushed it off to drift home alone. My children gasped at my extravagent and unlawful gesture. We expected the police to come pounding after us for all the rest of the long guilty cage-dragging walk home.
Like you, Simon, I hate to see things caged up. I built a long mesh run onto it so that we could move the contraption around the garden as a one-rabbit grass cutting and fertilising machine. All went well until one Friday evening when we had a thunderstorm with pounding rain. My kind hearted little girl dashed out and covered her beloved rabbit's home with a large plastic sheet. We had a fitfull night then a nice long sleep-in on the sunny Saturday morning.
Mid afternoon, someone remembered the pet. We uncovered the cage in the blazing sun and there lay one very wet, very dead, well cooked rabbit. Killed by kindness.
Your story also reminds me of two that I used to tell my children. Both are true and one involved introducing a bird into a butterfly cage. The other involved introducing a wolf into a Norwegian deer forest. In both cases the populations were dwindling and no-one could understand why as conditions were so safe and perfect for them. Once they had some danger in their lives, all perked up and flourished.
Not, I would hasten to add, that the smoking ban has produced conditions which are perfect for anybody at all - not even the non-smokers. It might, however, be the predator that we all needed to wake us up to the danger of the larger scheme of things.
Simon.
Like you, I do not like to restrict the movement of animals. My budgies and rabbits lived longer than normal, because I gave them plenty of freedom. The Government are killing our communities, by restricting our freedoms.
This story brings to mind the character Geoffrey Morely - a Lincolnshire surgeon who ended up with several kangaroos living in his garden in Lincoln during the 1950s.
He acquired one of them from a man who had bought it from Australia to London as a gift for the young Queen but she wasn't entirely happy to accept it. The chap kept it with him in a London hotel, much to the annoynance of the hotel manager, until Morely took it off his hands.
Morely wrote a book about his kangaroos, he bred them for about 10 years, and explained how he picked up a couple from the docks at Hull and transported them back to Lincoln in his car. Both strapped neatly into the back seat with their heads sticking out of the top.
The kangaroos were prone to escaping quite a lot which involved the police having to round them up. Morely was also something of an amateur naturalist. During a trip to Africa, he learned from the press that his kangaroos had been causing havoc in Lincoln in his absence.
On one occasion, one of the kangaroos broke it's leg .... and this was put right by Lincoln County Hospital's then oesteopathic surgical team including the consultant who operated on the animal's leg and fixed it as a favour to his friend and colleague Morely. Daily visits from the consultant followed so that he could check on the animal's progress.
All of the above would no doubt be illegal today - after all not even a smoker is alllowed into most hotels. I think the hotel manager back then was more tolerant of the kangaroo - even if he didn't like the idea of it staying in one of his rooms - than most hotel managers are today of smokers.
I think its terrable that the animal rights people have stopped rabits smoking. How would they like to be locked up in a labority for months without a fag?
I had a rabit when I was a little girl and I used to selatape a fag into its mouth to make sure it got its faire share. But my dad cought me one day and he gave me a right waloping. He said I was waisting his fags and if I did it again it would come out of my pocket money.
Ah those were the day ah?
Shirley Duffy
It probably shouldn't ... but your post made me laugh out load, Shirley. I think it's because the nonsense that we live in today is summed up in your first two paragraphs.
Ooops ... the last post went off too quick .. Sorry.
I should make clear that I think Shirley is an anti which is why I thought her post ridiculous and therefore hilarious.
I don't think it's funny to force a rabbit or a beagle to smoke, btw.
Pat
That is the kind of statement that we expect from Shiela Duffy of ASH.
I found the misspellings crudely unconvincing and was inclined, on seeing the post,to write in that I smelt a ra(bbi)t.
Opps a daisy I seem to have upset a few people hear. I didernt mean to I thought this was a websight for smokers.
I loved my rabit its name was corky and I thougyt I was helping it. In the end it lived for twelve years so I must been doing somthing right musternt I.
Whats a beagle?
Shirley Duffy
Somone just told me what a beagle is. It is one of those roundy donut looking bread rolls what the yanks eat a lot. I cant see why anybody would stick a fag in one of those unles it was there birthday?
Shirley Duffy
Sorry if I upset you Chas, but it was funny and shows how nasty these antis think we smokers are. An image like that could only come from their heads.
The very idea of all that she said shows how wrong it all is and why we are being persecuted but that isn't something anyone should be laughing at out "load" hence my view that I probably shouldn't.
You didn't upset me Shirley. I still think you've got a great sense of humour and I look forward to more of your posts.
Shame you can't take part in proper debates though. I'd really like to see sensible responses from ASH on this subject. It's because you hide behind abuse and false statistics that I tend to believe "the other side".
Btw, I wouldn't have a problem at all with rabbits munching their way through tobacco leaves.
Pat
You didn't upset me. It is very difficult to upset me. I love having a debate with these antis, as I like a good laugh.
I do wish, however, that antis could spell, as well as they can smell.
I fear the creator of the misspellings may have been so arrogant and so remote from the lives of most of us as to believe that s/he (some men are called Shirley) thought that s/he was accurately reflecting the spelling and attitudes of people whom the ruling political class may still regard, in their Dalek souls, as 'oiks'.
Why does Pat keep calling me ash? Im not silly you know just becuse im not very good as spelling I do know what ash means.
If you dont want me to keep posting on here just say so but stop calling me names and taking the pis.
Shirley Duffy