Memorial for Butterscotch

I know rabbits are low on the food chain, but they can make wonderful pets. Ours died yesterday, and I miss him. He had a beautiful coat of fur – mostly white, with brown and black patches. We named him Butterscotch. He was very clean and used a litter box even though he lived outdoors in a hutch, so I knew something was wrong when I saw he was matted with excrement. I realized he had diarrhea. If I had known how critical his illness was, I would have rushed him to the animal hospital, but in my ignorance I cleaned him up and assumed he would get better. That was Saturday. Monday morning he was lying in his cage in his usual posture, eyes wide open, seeming to watch me come up to the cage, but he was lifeless.

We got him shortly after Easter of 2009. Sara’s school friend got one, and she wanted one too. Tom Wadsworth gave us a hutch. To this day I’m not sure how he knew we needed one, but it was a great blessing.

I worried and fretted about everything to make Butterscotch comfortable. I fenced off a little area of the lawn for him to play in – his “playpen”, and when he was small we kept a keen watch out for hawks. He would come in the house often and he loved to walk around and smell everything. He didn’t mind the dog and cat a bit. Sometimes he would lie in my lap for 30 minutes or more and just snuggle. His coat was the softest thing I’ve ever felt, and he liked to push his nose down into the crook of my elbow.

Tammy’s Dad, Mike, taught us that rabbits love to have you run your fingers down their spine. When I did that to Butterscotch he would spread out his legs and flatten himself against the ground in obvious pleasure. Sometimes he would get so caught up in it he would flip right over on his side. We could also get him to turn around in circles by putting a finger next to his nose and drawing a circle on the ground with it.

Several times, at Sara’s insistence, we put a small collar on him and tried to walk him around the yard. He always seemed to hate it- he would desperately try to pull toward the bushes at the edge of the yard. One day it suddenly dawned on me that being out in the open was probably against all of a rabbit’s instincts. No wonder he was upset. We didn’t do that anymore.

He had a few toys, but none that he played with too much. However, if you held out a stick toward him, he would grab the free end and tug on it. He was really strong and he could usually get it away from you. If you held a stick vertically, he would gnaw on it. He could make short work out of anything wood with his sharp front teeth.
Through the winter, which happened to be quite cold here this year, I insisted on putting him in our garden shed to protect him from the wind. The shed has two large windows, and I put in lights. He wintered well there, but many mornings I had to thaw his water bottle. I wanted to put in a heater, but Mike assured me that rabbits are well protected against the cold by their fur, and as long as they are out of the wind they can tolerate temperatures well below zero.

In the spring, he had grown enough that I wanted to get him a bigger hutch. I mentioned this to several people. Cliff Knight at church heard about it and gave us one that he had. Butterscotch moved up to the big time! I built him a weather box; an almost fully enclosed wooden box that fit inside the hutch where he could go to keep out of the rain and wind.

Around March, when he turned a year old, he began to dig a burrow in his playpen area of the yard. This caught me off guard. At first I assumed he was trying to dig out under the low fence I had erected. But instead, he was digging from the edge in toward the center. He was very precise in his routine, and very remarkable in his accomplishment. He used his forepaws to dig, then his teeth to remove rocks and roots. After a few minutes of digging he would turn around and push the loose material with his forelegs into a mound near the entrance to the burrow. Within a few days, working about 10 minutes each day, he dug a foot deep and far enough underground so I could no longer see him when he went in. Sometimes to get him out I would gently prod with a stick and he would scramble backwards out of the burrow in an obvious huff. He had a number of different sounds, none of them loud, but very distinct. He had no trouble expressing himself. Sometimes I would tease him by putting a stick across the entrance to his burrow. That would make him mad – he would grab it in his mouth and flip it away with a toss of his head. Then he would chirp angrily.

Mostly, I just enjoyed his rather silent company. When anyone came outside to play or work, he would observe from his hutch with calm interest. You never had the sense that he wanted to come out and join; he just liked that there was activity around. When I mowed the grass, I would make sure to give him a handful of the clippings, much to his great delight.

When I think of all the time and energy we invested into this one lowly creature some might say it wasn’t worth it, but I disagree. We had a wonderful bunny for a year and a half. We loved him the best we could, and he loved us back; of that I’m sure. We will miss you Butterscotch!