My Story:

How It Came To Be

Chapter 1

Once upon a time, long, long ago - last century actually - soon after I had became a believer,  I said a prayer to the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. It went something like this:

"Dear God,
I do NOT want to work in an office. I have NOT worked in an office for 20 years!
I wanted to be a Mom. Please don't make me work outside the home!
Can't you please just make me an expert in something I can do at home? 
Please God?
Amen"

It was during an unhappy period, when I was unwillingly moving to a city I thought was worse than hell...Los Angeles. 
My three girls were beginning their teenage years, and the country we were moving to was not our home.
We had been living overseas since they were toddlers. On top of which, the computer age had been ushered in during the last decades, and I knew nothing about it!

I was almost finished raising my kids and I didn't end up having to work outside the home. I praised God and thanked him for that! I forgot about my prayer. My oldest daughter went off to college. My middle daughter finished high school.

My youngest daughter was turning 15,  and I took her and 5 girlfriends downtown to the garment district in Los Angeles on a Saturday morning. I gave each girl $25 with instructions to buy a dress, shoes, and jewelry to wear out to a birthday dinner at a nice restaurant. No one could spend more than the $25.

While the girls shopped,  I walked around Santee Alley and kept my eye on them. As they made their purchases, they would come show me, and we would all exclaim at the cool things one could find for so little money. 

Three quarters of the way through our shopping day, one of the girls (Lilly) came to me with a tiny little cage with a carrot and lettuce and the tiniest little bunny I had ever seen inside. It was all white with teeny brown spots and the softest fur! I had never seen a baby bunny this close up, and never one this tiny! It was precious and irresistible. I could totally understand her buying it. All the girls oooohed and ahhhhed at the bunny. We all took turns holding it.

We finished shopping and piled into the car to head home. While the girls did their hair and got dressed, I made a little home for the baby bunny in the downstairs shower stall. I gave him a litter box and carrots and lettuce, and a little rug and blanket. 

We went out for a wonderful dinner. The girls all looked marvelous! Afterwords the parents came to pick up their daughters. When Lilly's Dad arrived, he took one look at the rabbit and said, "No way!  We have 2 dogs at home. You let her buy it, you'll have to keep it!" So, that was that.

I named it Lilly after Lilly!

Chapter 2

My husband was adamantly opposed to another pet. We had 4 Devon Rex cats already, one for each female in the household.  He wasn't really an animal person to begin with!  

I didn't know anything about bunnies except that they were awfully cute. But I looked for a home for Lilly and within 2 weeks I had found 2 church families with children that wanted her. Only by then, somehow...... I had fallen helplessly, hopelessly in love with that little lagomorph!

I knew nothing about bunnies, so I just took her everywhere with me. She was so tiny she fit in my pockets. I bought a clear see-through vinyl purse at a thrift store and picked up some facecloths to line the bottom of it. Lilly went everywhere I went, slung over my shoulder in her window bag. We went shopping, to doctors appointments, and on trips. 

On a trip to Saratoga for a conference, she lay peacefully in her cage for the long drive and at rest stops I put her in a tiny little harness attached to a leash to let her walk around and stretch. In Saratoga, she lay quietly on my lap during the conference I was attending and at snack and lunchtime, she sat with me next to a fountain with a mermaid on it. She loved sitting next to the mermaid. She never wanted to leave the fountain. I think she was falling in love with the mermaid. 

When we returned to Los Angeles and went to our first vet appointment, I found out the truth!

I think she HAD fallen in love with that beautiful mermaid in Saratoga! Lilly was a little BOY! I was so used to her name by then, it was hard to change it. But Lilly is no name for a boy! So I decided on Leo. It took me a long time to make the change, it kept coming out of my mouth as Leelo, a silly sounding combo of Lilly and Leo.
(Leo passed away at 12 yrs of age).

Chapter 3

For some reason, after having Leo for a while,  I became so enchanted with rabbits that I wanted more. But I knew I shouldn't even think about it. Still, every day there was a new PennySaver paper in the mailbox, and every day there seemed to be another bunny being given away inside the pages. I called some of the numbers and sometimes they had already found homes or had given their rabbits to shelters. One time the person still had the bunny and I asked to come and see it. The whole way there I promised myself I would not bring the bunny home, I would JUST look at it, and then go home. If I really liked it, I could always go back. When I arrived there were 2 bunnies! A black one named Blackberry and a gray and white Dutch with cornflower blue eyes named Bambi.  Adorable! The lady was divorced and moving out of her place and the next place was not going to allow pets. She seemed really sad and just wanted to find a really good home for them. She wanted $50 for each one, but they came with a cage each and lots of goodies. We talked for a long time. She told me that when Bambi was still little her daughter had let the 2 bunnies play together and Bambi had gotten pregnant and had a litter of babies that all died because she was too young to know how to care for them. So Blackberry and Bambi had been separated and lonely since then. Neither one was spayed or neutered. Bambi had snuggled in my lap and hadn't moved for the hour I talked to this lady. She was so sweet and I could feel her need to be loved and given attention. She ended up offering me both bunnies, the cages and more for FREE! How could I resist that offer? Before I knew it I had 2 bunnies, 2 cages and a bunch of goodies in my car and was driving home. I set them up in the guest room and played with them.

My husband wasn't very happy. I said I would find them good homes! It was a good thing I hadn't paid $100 for them! In the next weeks, I had them neutered/spayed, and that alone cost close to $600.

Later that month, my daughter Tori mentioned her science teacher was looking for a bunny. A black bunny. She wanted a black one. I called her and told her I had a black bunny named Blackberry and if she had a good safe home for him, he was neutered and could be adopted. She said could she please see him, and I took him with me to school when I picked up Tori one day, and she was really happy with him and wanted him. I gave Blackberry a big kiss and turned him over to a new home. It was sad....but I knew it was a good home. My husband was happy!

Chapter 4

Sadie joins the troupe.

One day I was working as a volunteer for a Silent Auction at my daughters High School. There was a couple working alongside me that day, and I started telling them about my bunnies. They both looked at me at the same time and said, "Would you like another one?" I was like "What?"

Apparently they had gotten a bunny for their daughter. But they were both allergic to it. So the bunny lived outside in a wire bottom cage, but no one ever hardly touched her. To be nice, they fed her dried sweet cherries as a treat every day. I said I really couldn't take another rabbit or my husband would leave me, but I felt that inside tug to help, and so I offered to come and groom her and try to find a new home for her.

I went there a week or so later, and groomed her. She was a beautiful large dark brown/auburn lop and she was such a mess. Her fur was matted and she had soft gooey poops stuck to her genital area. Her hocks were sore and calloused from the wire floor. She was happy happy happy to be groomed and sat quietly for me, just absorbing the attention and the loving touch she hadn't felt for so long. I took a couple hours grooming her, just feeling the need she had to be touched and loved. I could feel it palpably!

Afterwards I suggested to them that they should get her spayed, to avoid her getting uterine cancer. Of course that was a big expense for someone not wanting to keep the rabbit.

My mind was going a hundred miles a minute trying to figure out how to help this beautiful animal. I offered to take her and find her a home, if they spayed her and had her declared healthy by a local vet. They agreed to split the cost with me. I picked her up from the vet afterwards and brought her home. She was so happy to be living indoors, on carpet and to have attention every day! I played with her every evening when I came home from my shelter. She was so sweet.

Chapter 5

I go to work at the local Shelter!

Finally I decided I needed to be doing something pro-active for animals. But what? I looked into the local shelter and they said I had to take an Orientation class to volunteer there, and it would be given in a couple months. I waited and took the class and went to work at the shelter. The first day there, I assumed I would work with the cats since I didn't know that much about dogs....but when I went to the cat room there were several cages of rabbits!

I had no idea shelters took in rabbits. I asked if I could take care of just the rabbits. They said PLEASE DO!  I was so happy. There were a just a few bunnies and they were shy and scruffy. Not real friendly, and the cages were dirty and messy.

Over the weeks I just kept their cages clean and patted them and refilled food and water. There was one other person at the Shelter who helped with the rabbits and he (EJ) taught me so much about them, about removing their stitches after spay and neuter, about grooming them, about cutting and filing teeth, and much more. I bought some books and started reading online as well, and I was learning exponentially. The material was fascinating and there was more than I ever expected available. There was even a House Rabbit Society. Amazing.

Chapter 6

The first bunny I met at the shelter was a medium size white bunny with red eyes. She was rather aggressive and would not let anyone clean her cage without attacking them and biting hard. The shelter asked me if I would like to foster her and see if I could "socialize" her, which meant getting her not to bite anymore so someone might eventually adopt her. I took the challenge and was bit at least several times a day for 6 months. Nothing I did helped her stop biting me when I went into her territory. 

However, lo and behold, once I had her in my arms, she snuggled down and sat totally calmly if I petted her. She even did what some bunnies do when they are extremely happy, she clicked at me. Sort of like when a cat purrs.

I loved how snuggly she was in my arms. She almost melted into me. It was really interesting.  Had I been really smart, I would have learned faster to just open her door in the morning, and then wait for her to come out by herself, but no, my limited patience and my desire to control everything always got the better of me, and so I got bit over and over again. Finally after 6 months, I took her back to the shelter and said I could not teach her not to bite, but she was lovely otherwise. They said she'd have to be put down.

So, Snowbee came home with me again. I adopted her. Instead of giving her a cage, I decided to put her into a pen, with a litter box and toys. She lived like that for the rest of her life. And she no longer bit me. And every single night when came home, I went into her pen and laid down, and she snuggled and clicked for me sometimes for an hour at a time. It was amazing. She became my chief therapist and listener. I grew to adore her. I called her Snowbee. My daughter Sam called her Nairobi. I guess because it rhymed. 

Chapter 7

Now there was Leo, Bambi, Sadie, and Snowbee. But they were all in single cages and it was a lot of work to clean them all. So I decided to do a "bonding". I had never done one before, and I had only read about it, and had read that it could go very very well, very very badly, or medium. The scariest thing about them is that rabbits can be quite vicious amongst themselves, that's just how it is in our sinful world. I reminded myself that it was the we people's fault that the world had acquired sin, and felt terrible that we had destroyed something so precious amongst innocent animals, that now they had to kill to eat, be killed and eaten, fight for survival, and live with each other under bad circumstances. oh so sad, that people couldn't be obedient. God so wishes us to be, just like we as parents wish our kids would be, for their own good! For our own good.

So I tried to bond Leo and Bambi. And it worked. It wasn't perfect, it moved slowly, it was not instant love, there was a little scuffling, a little yin and yanging, but all in all, they accepted each other and got along alright and were able to be in a pen together. Yay! One litter box down. It was adorable to see them grow to tolerate each other and sit side by side and even groom each other after a certain point.

Snowbee on the other hand did not want ANYTHING to do with ANY other bun. If one even got near her, it got its nose bitten off, as happened to Leo once when she just happened by his cage one day and he stuck his nose out to greet her. OUCH!. He yelped in shocked surprise. He had never met up with anything mean before so he was really offended and unhappy. I took him to the vet to have it checked. He needed a stitch or two and a few days to heal. Poooor Leelo!

So Sadie and Snowbee kept separate cages.

Chapter 8

I loved playing with the bunnies. When ever I was home, I laid down for a while with Snowbee to tell her about my day and hear her click, got  down and played with Leo and Bambi trying to teach them tricks, and spent some petting time with Sadie. She was shy and I think older than I knew, and she was so unused to being petted, but she absolutely loved it.

In time, I taught Leo to stand for a treat, and also to ride on my back. He loved riding on my back! He would jump onto my back from the second story of his condo, and we would go trotting all around the house. He never fell off or tried to jump off. He loved it. As long as my knees held out we went.  Bambi however wouldn't do it. If I put her there, she jumped off. She had no interest at all in horseback riding. She looked at me as if I was crazy, and I could see her little head thinking,"Do you really expect me to lower myself to be taught tricks?" :)

Chapter 9

One night I came home after dark, and was so tired. I went to Sadie first, and scooped her up and sat down with her on my lap. I massaged her back and gave her nose rubs. She made a funny gurgling sound and I picked her up to look at her face. Just then she had a sort of seizure and a cry arose from her like a baby's wail. One of the saddest sounds my ears had ever heard. Then she went limp in my arms.

I was 50 years old. But I had never ever experienced death in my very own hands. I had never actually experienced a death at all. I felt a terrible feeling within myself and an almost total inability to breathe, and then I literally wailed aloud. I couldn't get myself to stop. The wails just kept rolling out of me. They sounded terrible. My husband came running to see what was wrong. I held up Sadie. My eyes were full of tears and I could hardly talk. I cried out: She is dead, she is dead. He didn't believe me, and took her from me and looked her all over. "I think she is" he said. How did she die? What happened? I didn't know. And I couldn't stop the wailing. Death is such a scary, dark, and horrible thing. The little body was soft and limp. I took her back into my arms, and I just held and patted and rocked her.

When I could finally stop wailing, I ask Scott to take me to the emergency room because I was afraid to pronounce her dead. What if she wasn't? What if she was just in a coma? What if she came alive again? He dutifully and quietly drove me all the way to Moorpark and Los Arboles to the emergency vet clinic in Thousand Oaks.

Sadie was pronounced dead at 1 am. They had no idea why she had died.

Chapter 10

Every other Thursday night, my husband and I host a Bible Study in our home in Calabasas. We have about 10 people and we study the Bible. We have been hosting this small group for 8 years.

One night, one of the couples, Linda and Franz showed up at the door with a beautiful light brown bunny that looked like a chinchilla. He was quiet and easy to hold and seemed quite comfortable being with humans. My husband looked shocked, "What is that doing here?" he asked. The story was, that this little bun had been sitting on the street and driveway of their house for several days now, and she was afraid he was going to get run over.  First she had thought he was wild, but whenever she went near him he let her hold him and even pick him up. So, she decided to bring him to me, knowing how much I loved bunnies. He was precious. Beautiful, sweet little guy.

Scott said NO WAY. You take him to the shelter tomorrow. So I did.  

The shelter told me I could impound him, but he was to be put down, because there were just to many bunnies that month already. So Bear-Bear came back home with me. I wondered how I could assimilate him without it being obvious there was ANOTHER bun in the house. Maybe Scott wouldn't even notice.

I decided I would try to bond him with Snowbee. Sadie was too old to want a young hunk around bothering her, but Snowbee was young and spayed, and though she hated all other buns, Bear was pretty handsome, and anyway I had to try it so there wouldn't be another cage for Scott to discover and me to clean. I put them next to each other, tentatively, half closing my eyes dreaming and wishing they wouldn't hurt each other and make me have to take them to the vet. They sat quietly side by side. I kept both hands on either side of them and their heads looking straight ahead so they could sense each other, feel each other, smell each other, but not see each other straight on.

I could tell they were curious, in a slow slow way, about each other, and they turned slightly every once in a while so their noses would touch, then quickly away again. Then in one turn, Bear licked Snowbee's nose. From that moment on, it was a Romeo-Bear and Juliet-Snow love affair. It was a delight and a pleasure to watch. I have never been so enchanted in all my life. It was like I had my very own fairy tale happening in the northwest corner of my very own dining room. I video'd it so I could share it with you. Just ask me for the web site. They were a dreamy love affair and a wonder to behold.

I didn't need another cage. Now Bambi and Leo had each other, and Snowbee and Bear had each other, and I was at only 2 pens to clean. Hallelujah. (But you will laugh when you get to Chapter 50.)

Chapter 11

One day I went in to the shelter to work, my regular Thursday afternoon, and as I was signing in, someone was bringing a bunny in to be impounded. I looked up to see the most adorable tiny little black and white lop bunny I had ever seen. Absolutely precious!

The man was turning her in to be put down because she was very sick with a genital infection and she was 7 years old. He did the paperwork and I took the bunny to the back to set a cage up for her.

I looked at her carefully. She was tiny. She looked like a baby, but her backbone was a little lumpy feeling.  She had the cutest little face and the darkest eyes, and they looked like they knew exactly what I was thinking! I fell in love immediately. 

But her genitals were red and swollen and almost seemed as if they were turned inside out, and her tail wasn't where it was supposed to be. Instead it was next to the genitals rather than behind them where it would normally be.

I came back the next day and took her to my vet to see if there was anything he could do. I explained she was supposedly 7 and was to be put down otherwise.

The doc said he could fix it, but it would  possible require surgery and bunny hearts are fragile and anesthesia could kill them and so on and so forth. I said well lets try and give her a chance. she is so cute and sweet,and she might live another 5 years if she got better. I forgot to ask my doctor how much it might cost. After a surgery and a spay, and medications, Dottie's bill was $3000. Scott was QUITE unhappy to say the least, for not wanting to use other not so nice words.

Dottie, at that point, became priceless! Because I had to pay the doctor, and the prognosis was that Dottie might live 6 weeks or 6 months, but when she was opened for surgery, cancer was found, not only in her uterus, but on EVERY organ of her body.There was so much cancer, and it was so overgrown, the doctor said there was no way she would live long, he said it was really just UGLY. He scraped out what he could, but being that it was so attached to her organs, there was no way to get it off without injuring the organs themselves which might kill her then and there. I pictured it like the castle where Princess Aurora, the Sleeping Beauty lay, waiting for her Prince...and all those overgrown thorn bushes he had to cut through to get to the castle. It seemed hopeless, and I had to come up with 3 grand. Yikes.

I took Dottie home and made her a place of her own. I grew to love her deeply. And she went everywhere with me. Everyone ALWAYS wanted to hold her, and she LET everyone hold her, and she was the greatest sales-spoke-person for bunnies you could ever imagine. Everyone ask me a million bunny questions whenever Dottie was with me. She usually fit right in my purse or in a pet carrier backpack I had, and then I bought her her very own stroller too, where she rode to the market with me as if she were the Queen of Sheba! Dottie is still with me, several years after her surgery, and she has still not shown any further signs of cancer or degeneration. Her genitals are healed and she has no problems except that she is very feisty and says if there is any poem she wishes she could claim as her own, it is the poem called "WHEN I GET OLD I WILL WEAR PURPLE AND SPIT". It suits Dottie to a T.

Yes, Dottie is my little spitfire, that anyone can hold and love and she sucks up the attention as if it was tailor-made just for her! But do not try to pick up her poops at the bottom of her cage, or she will bite your fingers off!

Here is that poem: 

WHEN I AM AN OLD WOMAN I SHALL WEAR PURPLE
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick the flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

Taken from the book
When I Am An Old Woman I Shall Wear Purple
Edited by Sandra Martz
Papier Mache Press 1987

Chapter 12

Coming Soon!