The Bunologist Feb09

The Bunologist

February 2009 • •

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Clarence the SUPER spy Adopt me! Bunzette update

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What’s News? February is “Adopt a Rescued Rabbit Month”

Victoria in flames Victoria made world headlines this week after the worst bushfires ever have devastated our state. Over 1800 homes have been destroyed, an undisclosed number of people have perished and more than 330,000 hectares have been burnt out. Fires continue to burn and authorities say some fires could take weeks to contain.

If you’re looking to adopt a rabbit, this is the month to get out there & find a new friend! It doesn’t take long post Christmas to hear the many stories of animal presents no longer wanted. To find a bunny friend, contact your local shelter, council or veterinary clinic and let them know that you are would like to adopt a rescued rabbit. http://www.adoptapet.com.au/ (RSPCA)

Now as the animal toll now starts to emerge, authorities are estimating more than 1 million animals have been killed and thousands more need emergency care. This includes pets, wildlife & farm animals.

Animal Bushfire Support

http://www.aaps.org.au (Aust Animal Protection Society) http://www.lortsmith.org.au (Lort Smith)

Heatwave horrors

If you would like to help any of the animal victims, please visit any of the websites below.

10 February 2009 – Leader Newspaper Elderly people have died during Melbourne’s heatwave and hundreds of beloved family pets also fell victim to the soaring temperatures. Last month’s three day spell of temperatures over 40C took its toll on the community and many animals. Melbourne’s animal hospitals and veterinary clinics were inundated with hundreds of calls from panicked pet owners as dogs, cats, rabbits and guinea pigs suffered the wrath of the summer heat. Monash’s Animal Emergency Centre senior vet Rachel Peacock said 10 dogs died from heat exhaustion in the Monash area in 24 hours after being left outside in the heat. “Because it was so hot, a lot of animals weren’t making it to the clinic, they were dying before they even got here and that’s very unusual,” Dr Peacock said.

http://www.animalaid.com.au/support-to-bushfire-victims.html http://lortsmith.com/NetCommunity/Page.aspx?pid=397&srcid=-2 http://www.rspcavic.org/campaigns_news/news_bushfires.htm

We are so very pleased to present this wonderful story written by one of our very talented & creative young bunny friends. We never knew that our BOING bunnies were up to so much when we weren’t looking!

Clarence the SUPERSPY.

‘Hey, Clarence, come and sit next to me’. Called Pumpkin. Clarence walked over and took the spare seat next to Pumpkin and Dingle. Everyone was making sure they got to talk to Clarence, because he was kind of the leader of the pack. He finally got to chat with Pumpkin (alone). ‘So, Clarence have you got a girlfriend, yet’? he asked. ‘Yep, her name is Pepper. But she’s a cat’, muttered Clarence. Pumpkin burst into laughter the moment Clarence said ‘cat’. They’d had their party lunch, which was a bunch of sugared carrots, party water; mint leaves and sweet tasting hay.

And his school friends By James Robertson (age 10) Clarence the Bunny was getting all his spy equipment into his Mitre Pack bag. Today was special for him because he was going to see his old spy school friends at lunch.

And now they’re playing their traditional game ‘Crack the Walnut’, (How to play: they take it in turns to try and crack the supreme walnut of the year and who ever cracks it first gets to have a different assorted prize). But when they were just about to start playing the game, the party turned into a problem.

James was helping him pack some of his stuff. James is Clarence’s pet owner and spy student.

‘What is that’? cried Dingle. She was looking up to the sky and there was a huge flying ship with metal robots falling out of the trapdoor and landing right out side their party room.

‘So, Clazey are you going to let me come to this party’, asked James, flatly. ‘It’s not a party it’s just an, um, meeting’, he stammered, but James knew he was lying. ‘And, no, sorry this is only for me and my school friends only’. James just shrugged and opened the ladder hatch on the ceiling, shifted the tile and climbed out. ‘See ya’. Clarence was all ready with packing, now. He stepped down the stairs and came to his super fast Purple Scooter. He peddled it down the tunnel and had a good look at his paintings, before he came up the secret ramp. Under him the concrete sealed up and he was riding on Airedale Avenue. Clarence parked his scooter in the scooter racks where other brightly coloured scooters were placed. He could see a very long table where a lot of familiar faces sat. At the end of the table sat his oldest and most trusted friend…. Pumpkin, with his big round (fat) body and his tiny head. Along side him was Princess, Dingleberry but they all called her Dingle, Ally who was sitting uncomfortably next to Princess, Pancake, Peanut with his identical girlfriend Sarah, Stuart Little was there (surprisingly), Missy and Charlie not to forget, Tinkerbelle in all her glory of jewels, Tessa, little Kitty and last but not least Molly. The BOING bunnies!

Dingle looks up to the sky ‘They must be from our evil enemy, Mr. Beaver. Don’t you think so Clarence?’ asked Ally. ‘You are right, Ally’, replied Clarence. Kitty started running outside, over to the robots. ‘I’m going to rip you apart for ruining our party’, she snarled. One of the robots lifted up its weapon arm and shot a giant plunger right at Kitty, and she went flying back into the party house. ‘Ouch’. ‘Arm yourselves’, chorused Missy and Charlie. They all got out their mini laser blasters and ran out of the hut and started blasting the robots. ‘Uh, I don’t think it’s working’, muttered Tessa. ‘Retreat’! They all squeezed back into the hut. ‘What do we do now?’ asked Princess. ‘They’re surely going to pull the hut out of the ground.’ Bingo! Tinkerbelle had an idea! ‘Hey, Pumpkin, remember that tunnel me and you were building?”

‘Of course’, mumbled Pumpkin. ‘It leads to the Do Hop Inn and that’s where our deactivating weapons are’.

The job had been done. They’d placed the deactivating weapons on the heads of the robots. And they totally exterminated the robots.

A furry, dusty and small hole led down to a tunnel. Pumpkin squeezed through first, then Clarence, then Tinkerbelle, then Dingleberry, then Stuart Little and then the rest of the BOING bunnies.

They’d gone back to the party hut and finished playing Crack the Walnut. Unsurprisingly, Kitty won, using her super powerful teeth. She won a factory new Ice Block Blaster. ‘Good for you, Kitty’, cheered Peanut and Sarah (relaxing at left).

Their fur was getting dirty with dusty earth. Thumping sounds were still being heard from the hut. But they were hardly getting anywhere because of Pumpkin. ‘Hey, Pumpkin you’ve got forty times bigger since I last saw you. And, two words…. work out’, strained Clarence.

‘Hey, Clarence you know how the Do Hop Inn is trying to adopt Kitty’, whispered Dingle.

He was trying to push Pumpkin through the tunnel; it took a very long time to get to the house. There was a big cracking and crashing sound from the hut. ‘Yeah’, whispered Clarence, in reply. Finally they came to a plank of wood on the roof of the tunnel, and Pumpkin quickly pushed it aside and they were all squishing out. ‘Finally, we’re out’, gasped Sarah, while shaking off the dirt and dust. They were in a part of the house that was placed near the garden and they could see the robots’ confusion. Empty cages lined the room and a bunny mobile attached to the ceiling.

‘Well, I was wondering if you could take Kitty with you and make her part of your team’, said Dingle. ‘Really, well, cool, good. Well, ok me and Chief Guinea pig were talking about getting a new team mate’, muttered Clarence. So it had been arranged. Kitty was now a part of Clarence’s team. After they’d said their goodbyes, Clarence and Kitty got on their scooters (Kitty’s scooter was bright yellow) and zoomed off to Clarence’s hutch.

‘Tessa, you go get the weapons, ok. You know where they are’, ordered Clarence. ‘Aye, Aye, captain.’ Tessa saluted. She climbed up the cages with her claws and clambered into her own big cage. She pulled a little metal box (it had a big glowing button on one side) out from under her pink and black bunny bed (left). She nudged the button with her nose and watched the box open up and let millions of spy technology pour out of it. ‘It’s my special stash.’ Everyone picked up one of the deactivating devices. ‘Ok, everyone lets show those robots what we’ve got’, yelled Molly, Tinkerbelle and Ally. ‘Hooray’! They all ran out of the house, with the little devices in their paws.

Kitty rushes to her scooter! He gave her the grand tour of his underground hutch system and around the house. He introduced her to his team mates who were surprisingly at his house at the time: He introduced her to James, Bunneary and Chief Guinea pig. They all got along well. So that’s the end of one of Clarence’s happiest ending stories.

The End!

We decided to get Bunz immunised and desexed and thought maybe we could still find him a good home! Well shock and surprise, Bunz turned out to be Bunzette!!!!! lol..... for twelve months we believed we had a little boy here! and all along it was a girl!

Adopt me! Name: Location:

Miffy Melbourne Miffy was rescued from a home where the family had lost interest in her after her little bunny sister died and as a result, she has been neglected for a long time.

After a few weeks in her new foster home, with lots of TLC and fresh food, she is blossoming into an absolutely darling bunny. She is small, of unknown breed, has been checked out by the local vet and would be perfect in a home with a gentle boy bunny or where she’d get lots of attention by older people (like us!!!). She did have one solitary friend in her old home – the also-neglected pussy cat, so Miffy will also be comfortable in a home with a gentle, complacent pussy cat. We are sorry we can’t keep her as we already have three grown up bunnies who have bonded, an adorable pussy cat and various visiting fur-balls. If you are interested in Miffy, please contact Chrissie on 0409 526 787

Well Bunzette will be desexed hopefully next week. I am happy to say she already knew she had a good home here with us!! Just took us a while to realise it. Hubby has got into a routine now with changing her hay box each day and we put the soiled hay on our newly acquired veggie patch with veggies growing just for her!!!! We put in a garden bed around my craft shed recently and when buying natives for it I decided to use part of it for some veggies. It has full sun, just a perfect spot - only thing is as we do not have a big block. It is facing out to a public area where people walk past to walk their dogs. We get lots of comments and also have discovered a hare has made himself home in the bush opposite! At the moment the hare hops further up the road to a more lavish veggie garden and not mine! I have just given Bunz her first serving of pak choy from the garden and she loved it! She still shows the cats who is boss and every morning she is waiting to come out of the cat area on the verandah to run around the verandah and check out her favourite spots to rest. She also now manages to jump up on the outdoor swing which is on the verandah and sits there for the rocking motion! We often lie there together and nod off to sleep. Being deaf she seems to relax more as she does not get startled by any noises. She constantly follows our little Pomeranian dog around for lots of grooming which the dog does not mind doing regularly for her. Well after two hours of her dozing with me I have put her out to have some food. She could stay there for longer I am sure.

Bunzette update by Jill

Dear Diary…

Remember Bunz? He was a little bunny that was abandoned in an enclosure on the front lawn on Christmas Day 2007. Here is an update…. Well, after having Bunz advertised on the BOING website, we had some enquiries and let downs which took months to go through. We finally decided on a home for Bunz, but I still had reservations about it. This little bunny was so special because of his hearing problems. Hubby and I were ready to head off with Bunz that morning but I was having trouble catching him. Hubby then said........”oh maybe we should wait for a bit longer”. He was feeling uneasy about Bun’z new home too! So we went to Melbourne without Bunz that day. Now, I am sitting here typing with one hand as the other hand is supporting Bunz lying across my tummy. It was Christmas Day last year when I found this little rabbit all huddled in the corner of that horrid cage & so scared!

By Karen Just a small note from us this month. With all the devastation going on in our state it seems quite trivial to be talking about what we’ve been up to. However, this is a bunny newsletter and all through the heatwave & bushfires, we have been thinking of all those little bunnies who have lost their lives. The BOING bunnies all survived the heatwave but moulting has gone beyond what we’ve ever experienced before. Tinkerbelle, Pumpkin, Charlotte, Charlie, Peanut & Princess have all had minor tummy upsets so we have to be on full alert when any of the bunnies are quieter than normal and not eating their dinners or hay. Pancake had a mishap after Missy (nickname: Bruiser) broke through a barrier & bowled her over. As she’s around 8 years of age, she’s now very fragile and is very wobbly. We hope she’ll be fine & Ally is looking after her. A mother & daughter from Jehovah’s Witness’s ended up with a different experience after knocking on our door. After mentioning they had a rabbit, they were unexpectedly given a full bunny tour and left with lots of bunny care information. I bet that’s not what they were expecting!!