The Salsa Family Holiday

Two summers ago this month I had one of my favourite family of fosters staying at home with me - Salsa and her litter of 6 kids Picante, Noelle, JJ, Browncloud, Boz and Silvio. Salsa was a beautiful rabbit and her kids were all wonderful characters, they were a joy to look after. Each of them looked very different from one another, only Picante bearing something of a resemblance to her mum, and each had very distinct personalities. One of the boys, JJ, soon established himself as one of my favourite fosters ever - massive personality, lots of energy, very confident, wouldn't take any nonsense.

After a scuffle with one of his brothers I had the job of giving him daily antibiotics and cleaning a small wound - JJ wasn't impressed and made it into an extreme sport, dealing out enthusiastic warning nips to any hands that came near, snatching the syringe and throwing it across the room. Don't get me wrong, he wasn't aggressive, but as far as he was concerned he'd told me he didn't want to play the medicine game and was just annoyed that I didn't care. Handling him was very challenging but outside of those moments he was very humanised, liked the attention and company and was always getting into everything. I think that's part of why I loved him so much - you were never bored or took him for granted and he always rewarded your efforts by being friendly and highly entertaining. I don't think I've ever had a foster rabbit I've wanted to keep more, but unfortunately Whisky took a particular dislike to him and, around here, what Whisky says goes.

Well anyway, Salsa found love and went to live with one of our volunteers. Several of the others became partners of other RRR residents. Noelle and Picante were re-homed as partners to owners rabbits. JJ was for a while a complete pain when meeting other rabbits, like with us humans he had zero tolerance of their nonsense, but eventually went home with Noelle's new owner as partner to one of her own does. So that was that, and I thought I'd probably never see him again...

But look who came back to find a new friend?!

"What, I don't get a hug?!"

"Ha ha, only joking, I'll let you keep all your fingers intact (for now)!"

And if that wasn't exciting enough, look who his new partner is!

"Hey, let's translate that excitement into some treats, eh?"

With JJ and Noelle having both lost their partners recently, they came in a few weeks back to try each other out on neutral territory and soon became good friends.

"Hey sis, shall we go have some more fun winding Archimedes up, or should we just strike some dramatic and coordinated poses to show we're bonded now and head home?"

"Poses it is.."

"Now, which way was it back to our human's house again?"

But that's not all - as they were wandering around the Rescue getting to know each other again (and no doubt catching up on all the gossip with their brother, permanent resident snuffler Browncloud), looking over their bond was a very special boarder on holiday with her partner:

"I'm here to make sure they behave. And for a holiday of course! Can you point me in the direction of the poolside bar?"

"Oh, and while you're at it, bring me a few more of these appetisers - I'm going to need something to soak up the carrotinis..."

This month has been tougher than usual as on top of my regular duties I've been helping cover DIY while super-volunteer Ian was on holiday. But despite all the hard work it has been a genuine pleasure being on site because I've been able to hang out with all my old friends! It's certainly been fun and I look forward to hearing about all their future adventures!

Goodbye Girls

My beautiful and adorable foster buns move out today.

Noelle, my pretty little harlequin, such a timid girl who has come very close now to properly trusting me. I think she still has a little way to go before she will readily let humans be a fuller part of her life but once she does you can tell she will make a great addition to anyone's family. I suspect though that Noelle's natural rabbity caution means she will bond quickly with the right buck and then I'm sure he will quickly teach her how to work their humans to do their bidding!

Picante has been a joy to have in the house. She started off so shy and untrusting, quite scared of human hands, now she barely bats an eyelid when I have to pick her up. Picante is much like her mother Salsa in size and colouring. She has such pretty and individual markings too, with her one harlequin foot and one harlequin ear! If we make her available for some lucky buck looking for a wife, I'll bet she'll be first choice for every family who meet her!

I will certainly miss them both and be sad to see them go, but as always happy knowing they are one step closer to their permanent homes.

Tea Leaf

Rubber Chomper

"Again, putting me on the blog? Haven't you bugged me enough this week?"

The trust training with Noelle continues. I don't have a formal system of training or assessing progress, I kind of 'wing it' based on the individual and the sum of my previous experience, but certainly I count:

"If you sit on the floor, will jump on your lap to say 'Hi!', even if you're not holding snacks"

as a milestone. Question though - should I count it if, once perched on my legs, she promptly went about eating the rubber soles of my shoes? I mean, it's not a REAL snack...

NOTE: As you can see from the wide-eyed expression in the above pic (taken on my phone), she doesn't quite trust me to take her picture this close yet, otherwise you'd have had one of the chomping itself!

Her Name Is Noelle...Maybe

Since the fight with her sister, poor Noelle (as we are currently calling her) has been stuck in a cage for most of the time. With space here in our house in such short supply recently and with tensions running high with her sister, she rarely even got out to play.

Her brothers having been packed off back to the Rescue Thursday, yesterday morning I moved her outside into the shed and run, so she now has more than 75 square foot of space all to her self with lots of stimulation and fun things to do. Now I've got her back in a decent space, the next project is to get her "people confidence" up before she goes back.

Well anyway, since she hasn't had a day on the blog all by herself, I thought today should be that day. So here you go.

"It can be a bit lonely out here on my own. You know what else is lonely? This last snack in my bowl. Best you scoot off and get it some more friends."

Back in the RRR

After speaking to Caroline yesterday we decided that it is probably safest to return Salsa to the Rescue - one of her boys appears to be physically maturing ahead of schedule and we don't want him to be brother to his own children (or indeed have any children of his own, there being enough bunnies in Rescues as it is).

So one last picture of her before she goes back later today. This was yesterday after I'd health-checked them all (making them grumpy) and fed them (making them less grumpy) then left them to chill out in the hot summer evening (making them all sleepy and snugly, apparently). I should also point out that this is not their area, this is the hay storage part of the shed, but it was nearer their dinner bowls and when you've gotta flop, you've gotta flop.

"Darn straight. Maximum floppage in 3...2..."

Kids in the Shed

One of the things we did during my busy Wednesday was swap the foster bunnies around. Goodbye to Linenose, Spearnose, Tiny, Allbrown and Whitemouth (not their real names) who all went back to the Rescue, hello to Salsa and her six kids.

Most of the group were a bit nervous at first, perhaps the ride over sharing the back seat of Caroline's car with 12 wild rabbits didn't help, so I've given them a couple of days to settle in before taking any pictures. Even now, mum and a couple of the others still panic at new things like having cameras waved at them so I only have a couple of pics, but here they are. More squeeful cuteness to come no doubt!

"[chomp-chomp-chomp]"

"So...how does this work? Do you just watch us eat or are you going to join us at some point?"