Animal Antics

Since all I have for company for the next 12 days are 3 fur balls :-), I thought I'd share a few recent animal photos and news...

Josie and Mudpie spend a lot of time just staring at each other

I like the glowing eyes :-)

Harvey is still very wary of Mudpie, but not scared to death like he was a few months ago

Lately if I lean over to feed Mudpie, change her hay, give her a kiss while she's hanging out on our bed...anytime I get low enough for her to do so, she jumps onto my back!

Help!




It's really funny how much time Mudpie can spend hopping up and down my back. I can't figure out why she enjoys it so much, but it sure makes us laugh!

We're having a kid, so maybe this is just good practice for getting used to having a little creature jump all over me? :-)

Mudpie also enjoys jumping all over Nick's belly. She's not allowed on my belly right now! ;-)

Watch out for this bunny's curious stare right in your face...those whiskers tickle

The sweet and innocent look

Venturing out of her enclosure. She's getting braver about coming out and running around when we open up her gate, regardless of where the cats are.

This is another common site these days. Josie and Mudpie will often just go up to each other, say hello, touch noses and just look at each other calmly. Josie will then saunter away casually while Mudpie stretches towards her, nose wriggling like "where are you going?". It's very cute. They aren't best friends yet, but they aren't afraid of each other at all.


Strangely enough, Josie doesn't try to go into Mudpie's domain.

The animals are very entertaining every day, as usual. We're still really happy we brought Mudpie into our family. It's amazing to see how much personality rabbits have and how social they are. Mudpie continues to hang out on the couch with us, hopping around, nibbling at our ears and stealing our food. I was eating a popsicle the other night and she leaned right over my shoulder, grabbed the popsicle stick and took off with it! :-)

She does tend to nibble at furniture and usually a toy will distract her quickly and she'll chew on the toy instead. One toy she has is made of wood and is especially for rabbits to chew up. I gave her this one day when she took a chomp on my couch. She grabbed the toy from me and threw it across the room and went back to the couch. She reminds me of a baby in a highchair who throws food on the floor when she doesn't want it! She is mostly very neat and clean, but if I give her a veggie she decides she's not in the mood for that day, I'll find it torn up and flung all over her house. You can just tell she tried to throw it as far as she could to express her displeasure. :-)

But she's mostly very sweet and I still get a kick out of how much she gives me kisses. I know she really loves us and trusts us now. Kissing (licking) is one of the ways rabbits express their trust and affection but there's one other thing rabbits do that tells the world they are extremely happy: it's called a "binky". When a rabbit binkies, it jumps into the air and twists its head and body in opposite directions (sometimes twice) before falling back to the ground. This is a rabbit's way of telling you straight out that it is happy and overall pleased with you and its life.

I have been dying to see Mudpie binky. It just sounds so cute! Well, the other day Nick and I were both working from home (our new schedule). Unfortunately Nick had just left the room and missed it, but I was in the office where we had brought Mudpie in to hang out with us. She was on the floor and I was just talking to her, and suddenly she binkied! She jumped high into the air and spun around several times and it's really obvious she was happy. I was beyond excited to see it. :-)