Should You Bring Home A Bunny Rabbit As A Pet?

Ah, it's spring and images of bunny rabbits are popping (hopping) up everywhere and those cute little baby rabbits have appeared in the pet shops. Should you bring one of them home as a pet?
Answer: It depends on how much you know about rabbits. Rabbits are currently a verypopular house pet in America. Unfortunately, many baby bunnies are taken home this time of year and given up just a few months later because new owner's weren't prepared for what they got.
Size Does Matter: There areover 40registered rabbit breeds in the United States and the size of a full grown rabbitcan range from 2 or 3 poundsto over 20 pounds. You could get a lot more bunny than you bargained for if the babyrabbit turns out to be one of the giant breeds!
Whoa, They Live How Long? Many people think that a bunny will be like guinea pigs or hamsters and live just a couple of years. Rabbits who are well cared for in the home can live for ten years or more. Bringing home a rabbit is a long term gemittment.
The Importance Of Being Altered: Like cats and dogs, rabbitsmake the best house pets when they have been spayedor neutered. Rabbits begee "teenagers" at four to six months of age and have raging hormones that make them about as much fun to be around as some human teens with raging hormones.This is the point wheremany bunnies get bounced from the home, because they begee hard to handle if they haven't been altered.
Health: To be successful with a pet rabbit, you need to be aware of theimportance of agood diet and just how well a bunny can hide being ill. As an animal that is preyed on in the wild, rabbits are masters at hiding being ill. So it is good to have knowledge of gemon rabbit diseases and illnesses and the early signs that say bunny needs a good rabbit savvy vet.
Exercise: For good health, rabbits need about 30 hours of free runtime a week. If they are in the mood they will run top speed around rooms, up and down stairs, and bounce on and off furniture. They will hit speeds up to 25 miles an hour, so you have to watch your feet or they will trip you up! Bunny lovers call it the Bunny 500 and just sit back and enjoy the show. Sometimes a rabbit will do a "Binky" as part of the action.A Binkyis a leap or jump where theysometimes click paws together in the air or change direction mid air and gee down running off another way entirely. Binkies can be very energetic or very light hearted.
WhereIs The Bunny And What Is He Doing? For your sanity and the rabbit's safety, you need to learn how to "bunnyproof" your home. Rabbits can wiggle into unbelievably small places and like to chew everything in sight. They are very curious and sometimes very stubborn. Fortunately, there is a lot of information available on the Internet from house rabbit societies andemail groups to help you.
Okay, We Are Rabbit Crazy: Once peoplelearn these thingsabout rabbits,they can't understand why we actually have three rabbits living in our home. Its because rabbits are unbelievably fun as a pet. They can be litter box trained and can learn their names and understand many words and gemands. However like cats, whether they respond toa gemand depends a great deal on whether they are in the mood. It is this quality that caused us to begin calling it "Rabbittude".We kept saying we have "Rabbits with Attitude" and eventually it just slurred into Rabbittude!
Playtime: Rabbits can bevery playful. Some like to throw toys, others like to dig at things, and they all love safechew toys. Ours like to burrow under a sheet we drape over a couple of cardboard boxes and we play "Peek-a-Bunny". If we are on the floor on all fours, we have one rabbit who will hop on our backs to get his "bunny back" ride. He also loves to play withplastic slinkies. Another one of our rabbits likes to push balls around for her playtime. The third of our group does the mostunbearably cute kitty style flops and curl upsand turns her head to look at us with her big brown eyes andwe knowshe wantsusto gee pet her.
ToMystery: Weread an article once that said rabbits are the pet of choice for people who love mysteries, because you just don't know what they will do next. We have always been well entertained by them. It is hard to stay in a bad mood when a bunny decides to play the clown or hops up beside you on the sofa and flops down to be petted. So we say, bring on the RABBITTUDE!
Surfing Time: We recognize that rabbits are not for everyone. If you are thinking of one as a pet, do some Internet surfing to get a good handle on whether a bunny is your pet of choice. Ifyou love rabbits, but aren't ready for thereal thing, there are lots of chocolate, plush, or collectible rabbits out there!
gee Visit: If you want collectible, check out the Rabbittude Shop. We just can't resist anything having to do withrabbits and have a variety of items to choose from. We also have our own Rabbittude Designs inspired by our three bunsters.