I know... I know…
You are going to say please just not another blog post about some kind of rant. But I am sorry; I am going to rant because I am fucking
piss off! As most of you know I am an
avid animal lover to which my ever expanding menagerie is a testament. I love all animals. Ok, that’s not entirely true. I hate spiders, snakes and all worms with fur
on them. Well, technically they are
insects and reptiles but apart from them I am like Noah but without a message
from God or an ark. I must also admit
that I sometimes like animals more than I do people as animals have no malice,
don’t start wars or are not responsible for gross violations of human
rights. This is why when animals are
being abused, mistreated or neglected I lose my shit and this is exactly what
happened this weekend.
You see this weekend hubby and I went to our local nursery
to have a look at some plants. In
December last year hubby took out all the invader plants in our backyard and it
now looks like a drag queen’s face who have been out in the rain smoking
crack. We decided to take out all the
invader plants not because we had some kind of xenophobic plant attack but
because the invader plants were taking over our back garden and killing all our
other indigenous plants. Invader plants
are assholes like that and you should never ever trust a sword fern. They are evil and very hard get rid off and difficult to kill! So with our back garden looking
sad and barren we decided that this weekend we will get some indigenous plants
and start with our backyard’s rejuvenation.
Also, the plants that we need to buy must not look scrumptious to our
bunnies and also not be poisonous to them either. Quite a tall order I know.
When we arrived at our local nursery it was right in the
middle of the heat of the day and they were busy watering their plants with
their sprinkler system. Good for the
plants. Not so good for us. It is really difficult to do plant shopping
when you are constantly being sprayed with water.
I was also wearing flip flops (don’t judge me) and I was busy getting
grossed out by all the water puddles that were forming. So I eventually told hubby that we should
call it a day but first I wanted to have a look around the pet shop they have
at the nursery. This is where the
problem started.
While walking around I noticed that the pet shop had their
normal range of small rabbits. All
bundled into different cages separated by breed. It wasn’t long before I spotted a bunny that
looked really despondent and was kept separately in his own cage. He was an adult French Angora rabbit and
rather huge one at that. He was sitting
in his small cage with his back towards the outside; his cage littered with the
feces of other animals that were there before him. He had no hay (which is an essential part of
a rabbit's diet and especially that of Angoras), no rabbit pellets but only what
looked like dog food and water. He
looked depressed and when I acknowledge that I had seen him he turned to me and
I could see he was also starved for interaction of any kind. Rabbits are social animals after all.
Later that afternoon when we got home I told my husband that
I cannot stop thinking about that rabbit. Hubby also said that it upset him to see the
rabbit being held in those conditions.
We then mutually decided that the next day we would rescue him. Of course my husband’s conditions were that
the rabbit had to be neutered and thoroughly get checked out by our vet to
which I agreed. On Sunday morning we
returned to the pet shop. Hubby warned
me to not cause a scene or to go all PETA on their asses and that I had to be diplomatic which is sometimes hard
for me as I suffer from foot-in-mouth disease.
After questioning the shop assistant about the rabbit’s history I learned
that he was one year old and had belonged to a breeder who wanted to get rid of
him because he was fighting with the other rabbits. So it seems that if you are a rabbit at a
breeder and if you do not behave or have served your purpose you are either killed
or thrown away. Great way to treat
animals, ain’t it?
The sad part is that adult rabbits rarely get bought at pet
shops or get adopted. The general public
always seems to go for the cute baby rabbits and the older ones are over
looked. The distressing reality is that
when people buy bunnies as pets they know very little about them. They don’t know what their nutritional and emotional requirements are or the fact that rabbits are high
maintenance pets and are expensive to keep.
They are not suitable pets for children under the age of 8 and if you do
want to keep them inside the house you need to bunny proof or else the
bunny will destroy things. When these
people then wakeup to the reality that rabbits are more labor intensive than
cats and dogs and more expensive to maintain they tend to want to get rid of them. Some “set
them free” and think that the rabbit will be fine. What people don’t realize is that
domesticated rabbits cannot survive in the wild and they will die.
After speaking the shop assistant and checking out the
French Angora up close we were told that we would have to speak to the owner
before “buying” him. We ran into a snag and to make a long story
short, if all goes well, we will be able to fetch him on Wednesday. Only then will we be able to access his
health and determine what effect having been kept by an unscrupulous breeder
has had on his physical and emotional health and determine what kind of
rehabilitation he may require. Luckily
our cats and bunnies are all very chilled and I am sure they will help him
become the happy bunny he is destined to be, instead of an animal whose sole
purpose is to breed.
I sometimes wish that all people who consider themselves to
be “animal breeders” would be
required to obtain a license from the SPCA to do so. Also, I wish that the SPCA could inspect
all the animal breeders to make sure that the animals are taken care of properly
and that their living conditions are acceptable. There are so much animal abuse and neglect going
on in the world and I don’t understand how people keep animals if they cannot
care for them.
Lastly, I also wish that
people who adopt rabbits would educate themselves about these highly intelligent
animals before they get them. Animals are
not your property that you own. They are
not things. They are living creatures which
you cannot just throw away when you are tired of them or when they
misbehave. When you buy or an adopt an
animal that animal is your
responsibility and the way you take care of and treat that animal says a lot
about who you are as a human being and the respect you have for life around
you.
Till next time.
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