Jack’s Story

The Misfortunes of an Easter Bunny

A Very Beautiful Bunny

We adopted Jack from a local rescue a little more than a month after they had found her living on the streets. She had been rescued late in February, toward the end of a very cold Canadian prairie winter.

Jack was a remarkably beautiful little girl. A calico Dutch dwarf with blue-grey and brown eyes. She was about a year old when we adopted her, so her assigned birthday was March the 4th.

Jack seemed disinterested in people when we went to meet her but it can be difficult to tell what a bunny’s personality is like while they are living at a shelter. All the noise, the barking dogs, and the people walking around everywhere can be quite hard on a bunny’s nerves.

We adopted her as a companion for our then senior bun, Stopit. He had outlived two brothers so we decided that a wife might be right for him. The bunny introduction at the rescue went very well so Jack’s personality didn’t actually matter that much. She was a great match for Stopit, and that was all that we truly wanted, so Jack came home with us.

The bond between Jack and Stopit was a match made in heaven - love at first sight! It was a real January-December relationship as Jack was a year old at the time and Stopit was twelve. The two bunnies loved each other tremendously and Jack took excellent care of her aging friend. Stopit had some arthritis issues and could not groom himself properly anymore, so Jack took care of that for him. And Stopit perked right up. We even caught him occasionally trying to behave like a ten year old!

Yes, Jack was an amazing companion for Stopit, but she was definitely NOT a people kind of bunny. Jack was mean. On purpose. All the time. She was not like other bunnies that might bite if you approach or annoy them. Jack would lie in wait for people and anybody entering her room would be charged and bitten. She absolutely hated people. And she was always annoyed.

Her fury was even worse when I tried to do things with Stopit, like giving him his pain medicine each day. Stopit was a very sweet old fellow and was happy to be picked up and handled. But that made Jack furious! Doing anything with Stopit became a race against the raging bunny - get to Stopit and give him his syringe full of medicine before Jack had time to charge across the room and remove more of my skin. It was never easy and I was often unsuccessful!

When Stopit passed away about nine months later, Jack was devastated. She only wanted to lie in Stopit’s favorite spot in the sun; she barely ate, she didn’t lunge or grunt, and absolutely nobody got bitten. It was incredibly sad to see. So we took her back to the rescue to find her a new companion. She hated all of the bunnies we introduced her to, except for Douglas. She completely ignored Doug, so he came home with us.

For those who might not be aware, bunnies ignoring each other during introductions is not actually a bad sign. Bonding Jack and Doug was fairly straightforward in large part, I suspect, due to Doug’s incredibly sweet, gentle nature.

Doug was much larger than Jack, even though he was not actually a very big bunny. She was just that tiny.

Jack’s Back Story

We obviously don’t actually know what Jack’s back story is. All we know for sure is that to somebody she was just another disposable bunny. Jack was an absolutely gorgeous bunny though and that, combined with her estimated birth date, suggests that she was quite likely an Easter bunny from the previous year. She must have been the cutest little thing when she was a baby. It melts my heart just trying to imagine her. So, while Jack’s story may or may not be true, this story is definitely true for a lot of other bunnies…

Jack was probably an Easter gift for some innocent child, bought at a pet store or online - wherever people were getting their bunnies from at that time. She certainly didn’t come from a rescue or shelter as she was unaltered and had no form of identification.

Was sweet baby Jack inadvertently tortured by the small child until she hated the kid so much that she started to bite? Then was Jack the mean bunny thrown away to fend for herself? Jack was a tiny bunny - no more than three pounds at her plumpest. Who could possibly think that she would do well out on the streets? But somebody did think that.

Jack was able to survive though. Somehow she made it through the winter. Was she by herself, or did she have friends to help keep her warm? For those not familiar with winter around these parts, temperatures in winter frequently dip down into the -20C to -30C (-4F to -22F) range. I don’t imagine that Jack could have survived if she had been dumped during the winter; she would have needed time to establish herself before the snow and ice made it impossible for her to find somewhere to live.

So she survived, and then she was rescued. But she never truly recovered.

Jack finally had a safe, warm, soft bed to sleep in

Life At Home With Jack And Doug

Jack was content with Doug. I don’t think she loved him as much as she had loved Stopit, but she did care about him. And Doug really loved her. Sadly though, Jack never overcame her deep distrust of people. In the years following her adoption she did calm down a bit; she stopped charging all the way across the room to bite us. We had to meet her halfway… Her episodes of biting also became less frequent, but she never stopped and nobody could ever get close to her.

One of my most vivid memories of Jack is the day that I heard yelling coming from her room. “JACK IS COMING!” was the cry. I ran to the room to find a rather large child standing on a chair and a diminutive calico bunny sitting in the middle of the room with an evil glint in her eye. I sometimes think she quite enjoyed the fact that everybody was terrified of her.

I feel that little Jack missed out on a good life. Yes, we took good care of her. She was safe, warm, and well-fed, and we really loved her. But was she ever truly happy? I honestly don’t know. She always hated people and she taught Doug that people were something to be feared and avoided at all costs. When we first adopted Doug he was timid but friendly. Unfortunately though, if Doug ever tried to come close to anybody, Jack would attack him. She hated all of us that much and that breaks my heart.

The only time Jack could ever be touched was at the vet. She detested our wonderful vet far more than she despised us, so that was the one place where we could hold and stroke her. She would even come to us for comfort. Or maybe it was just her way of getting us to believe that she was actually a nice bunny so that we would take her back home with us again.

Jack, suddenly much sweeter, waiting to be seen by the vet

Lessons From An Unwanted Bunny

I will always be grateful that we adopted Jack. She was angry and mean but I cannot imagine that many other people would have tried to understand her like we did, or would have provided her with a loving home in spite of her behavior. Some bunnies just need a little extra love and Jack was definitely one of those bunnies. So we loved her from afar, and let her be herself.

If you have a bunny and you have come to the realization that you do not want it any more, for whatever reason, please please please don’t throw it away. Even if it survives, you may be robbing that little bunny of its life. Please find a way to rehome your bunny, or wait for space to open up at a shelter.

This story does end with a little bit of good news. When Jack passed, poor little Doug was left terrified of people but he no longer had his bold beauty to tell him what to do. We adopted ThunderBun to be Doug’s new companion - a massive, outgoing, overbearing bunny who absolutely loved people. Doug was sincerely confused at first but over time he learned that ThunderBun might actually understand things a bit differently than Jack had. Eventually, Doug decided that he could trust the people around him, despite what Jack had taught him.

Shy little Douglas. He was a good bunny who loved his beautiful Jack