Jordan's Journal Days 1-4 A Diary of Rabbit Adoption You are the: visitor since 12/5/98 Jump to: [ Latest entry | Tranced Bunny | Full Frontal Binky | The Vorpal sand bunny | Roadtrip | Full run of the house! | Meeting the kitty ] [ Back to Todd's Bunny Page | Up to Todd's Home Page ]

[ Jump back to the rest of the journal ] Day One--Wednesday 5/12/1999 I picked up "Pamba" today from her Chicago House Rabbit Society fosterer Marianne Maggi. She kept Pamba in a huge 3'x6' x5' tall dog cage in a room with two other rabbits. Maggi also had 2 dogs and 2 cats. When I came into the room, Pamba was hiding in her cardboard box. She was very cute, but much bigger than I envisioned, especially given the description that she was 4 pounds when she came into Maggi's care on 3/30/99. She was neutered on 4/14/99 (Pamba, not Maggi), and she evidently put on some weight since her spay. Maggi weighed her on the bathroom scale and estimated her to be ~5 1/2 or 6 pounds now. I was concerned that perhaps she was too big for the cage I'd bought. (Later I realized I was basing my expectations of mini-lop size based on my niece's a 4-month old mini-lop! No wonder the 11-month-old Pamba looked big!) Maggi's cage for Pamba was solid-bottomed. It had a large hay tub in the back, and a large litterbox with Yesterdays News litter, and a big stack of Romaine lettuce. Pamba thumped like crazy when Maggi's dogs came up near her cage. She wasn't very excited about being picked up, but Maggi managed to wrangle her. I'd brought a 14"x24" cardboard moving box to transport her (although a front-opening pet carrier would have been better had my budget permitted). The box had a towel, a 13"x13" small square litterpan in it, along with some newspaper. I cut a number of crescent shape holes out of the sides to allow her to breathe and peek out. Once I was done cutting the holes in the box, Maggi brought Pamba from her cage and set her in the box. She was pretty quiet, but was clearly scared, breathing a mile a minute. She was pretty quiet inside the box while Maggi filled out the paperwork and I signed the HRS contract promising to be a good bunny owner. :-) Officially, by HRS of Chicago policy, I was taking Pamba in as a fosterer. This policy protects against the case I happened to be allergic to Pamba's fur, or if Pamba just plain didn't end up liking me. I asked Maggi if she could show me how to trim Pamba's nails. She had me wrap Pamba up snuggly in a towel, and I held her on my lap while Maggi trimmed her nails with a scissors type clipper. Maggi just took each paw out of the towel, located the quick (vein) in the light, and trimmed back the nail safely ahead of the vein. She was quiet on the ride home in the back seat. On the way home, I stopped at Pet Supplies Plus where Maggi told me I could find Yesterdays News brand litter. I also picked up a heavy crock bowl since Pamba's HRS info sheet stated: "Drinks from: ...bowl." So much for that bottle I bought. Other things on the info sheet: Litterbox trained: yes Good with children: yes Good with other rabbits: yes Good with other pets: yes Likes to be held: sort of Drinks from: bowl Circle all that best fit bunny: clean, energetic, friendly, playful Additional info: Sometimes jumps at sudden noises, and thumps when upset or nervous I got her home, and she was pretty calm, but still breathing quickly. She let me pet her as soon as I let her out of the box. Within hours it was clear she was a keeper--such a sweet little fuzzball.. Pamba becomes Jordan I watched her and discussed what I would rename her, as the name Pamba really didn't grab me at the time. "Pamba," I learned later, was a sponsored name for her, and that it is a Swahili word for "cotton." Pretty inventive, I'd say. Prior to meeting her, I'd joked about the humorous named of Dusty Bunnicula (the latter name after a recent and popular children's book. Alas, she didn't look much like a Dusty, though the thought of Dust Bunny was kinda clever. As I watched her, Pamba was running around the kitchen. Then, all of the sudden, without warning, and without any explanation, she suddenly leaped hight into the air from the berber throw rug. Upon seeing this, the Chicago thought hit: Your name is Jordan She had mad hops like Michael, right? I was thrilled to watch her hop around the kitchen. [Since then, I've learned that this is a common bunny "happy dance." alt.pets.rabbits newsgroup contributors have gone so far as to name this maneuver a "binky."] Jordan would stop at intervals, stretch out on the floor and kick her legs out to the side like a dog...much to my amusement. She had very good litter habbits this first night. When I woke in the morning, I discovered that she pushed the hay out of her little 13" square litterbox she could sleep in the box.

Day Two--Thursday 5/13/99 In the morning, I discovered the hay pushed outside of the litterbox. I let her out to run around the kitchen, and she dropped a few pellets outside of her cage. Over lunch, I brought two friends John and Steve over to meet her. She was pretty agitated over the extra people and my attempts to pet her. She peed on the floor next to the refrigerator, which was quite disappointing. I cleaned up the mess immediately, and she hasn't repee-ted (ugh!) since. Even though she was happy to have me pet her the previous day, she wasn't as permissive in the morning or at noon. In the morning, she showed the first indications of her sock fetish. She immediately started nibbling at my socked feet. I quickly learned to bare my feet in Jordan's presence. In the afternoon and evening, she warmed up to me again, allowing me to pet her. She was much calmer in the evening. I fed her lots of baby carrots today, 2/3 of an apple and about a 1/3 cup of pellets, and a number of dandelions (which she really liked). I was concerned that I hadn't seen her drink any water since I brought her home. She finally drank some water tonight, though. I'd since been told that she won't drink much provided she gets water in fresh vegetables like I've been feeding her. She seemed to like the smaller twigs I gave her. She didn't chew the larger twigs at all. She also showed a liking for sweatshirts. She didn't really chew on much else. At night, I moved all the hay from the litterbox and left it in the corner of the cage. I was somewhat concerned about her spending so much time in her litterbox, even though I had set out cardboard in the cage for her to lie upon. Day Three--Friday May 14, 1999 In the morning, I discovered that Jordan had made a mess of her cage. It looked like she got bored at night. I had neglected to leave her small cardboard box in the cage with her. Also, my "take the hay out of the litterbox so she doesn't spend so much time there" thoughts appeared to backfire. In the morning, I discovered urine and pellets outside the cage on the cardboard near the hay. She still hadn't drunk any water from her water bottle. I added a second litterbox with litter and a small amount of hay under the kitchen table to help with her out-of-cage litter habits. She peed in it almost immediately after I set it out for her. :-) I left her for about 5 hours in the cage during the day. When I returned around 6pm, Jordan was fine. On Maggi's advice, I bought her Jordan a medium-sized 14"x18" cat litter pan for her cage to replace the tapered 13"x13" rabbit litterbox she had been using there. Though it took up more space in my 24"x36" cage, it still left plenty of room for Jordan to stretch out. I put the little square litterbox in front of the refrigerator on the carpet where Jordan was leaving a lot of pellets. I finally picked her up this evening! Certainly, she isn't fond of the process. The method of picking her up from the HRS House Rabbit Handbook just does not work with her. It's impossible to get a hand under her chest and still expect her to stick around! I talked with Maggi about this, and she said to be firm with her, and hold her to the ground from the top, and then scoop her up. This seemed to work okay, but it was still traumatic for me. She kicked and kicked and kicked. She's still scratching herself a lot, which makes me wonder if she has fleas. Maggi said she didn't recall seeing any on her, or any of the other pets from her house, but she also said that flea eggs can be imported in hay. Jordan likes moving the small litterpan all over the floor, and moving her small cardboard box all around her cage. She's very curious, and explores every nook, cranny, corner, and molding on the kitchen floor.

Day Four--Saturday May 15, 1999 I left the small cardboard box in her cage last night, and didn't find any mess this morning. Maybe she was just bored when she trashed her cage 2 nights ago. She really seems to like moving that cardboard box everywhere in the cage. I didn't find any pellets or urine outside her big litterpan in her cage.She ate all her carrots and spinach that I gave her last night. She's wasn't impressed with the jingling toy ferret play ball I gave her. Her "crepuscular" behavior, as the book calls it, is apparent. She's very active in the mornings and very late at night, but is very sedate in the afternoon and early evening. [ Continue on with the rest of the journal with all the pictures.... ]

	Text and photos Copyright © 1999 tdh@toddh.net. Duplication of this content without the written consent of the author is prohibited. Bunny butt icon courtesy of the House Rabbit Society.
	The Jordan Files
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