Happily Hopping Hares

I know my A to Z theme seems to be all about animals. It's not. I promise. It's just that animals have always been a big part of my life. And, during one long portion of my life, my family raised and sold rabbits.

The first thing I want to mention is that not all hares are rabbits, but all rabbits are hares. There are actually other animals with long ears that resemble rabbits and are also called hares. It's just that I have something else reserved for the letter R.

My mother had always wanted to raise angora rabbits in order to sell their fur. You don't kill these rabbits for their fur. When they reach a certain age, you take a special brush, and simply brush the shedding fur off. Then you sell it.

by Jigra Knits on Flickr

We had other types of rabbits too, which we sold as pets, or other non-kill purposes. We sold one batch of rabbits for a TV show. If you ever watched the sci-fi comedy The Greatest American Hero, you may remember an episode that was all about a cage full of rabbits. Those were our rabbits, and they went on to be given away as pets.

I also took one of the angoras to keep as my own pet. It was a cute little gray ball of fur, so I called him Grayball. He was the cutest little thing you could imagine. I loved him very much. I wish I had pictures, but I guess we never took pictures of any of the rabbits. Instead, I grabbed one from Flickr.

Here's where my cute little rabbit story turns deeply depressing. Please stop now if you want to have a happy day today.
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^ That is a line of tears. Here's another warning, just in case you skipped ahead. This next part is really depressing.

First, my little Grayball died when he was still very young. He had a horrible seizure that wouldn't stop. He just kept seizing and seizing. My dad had to take him out and put him out of his misery. I was so heartbroken. This was the second time my dad had to do something like this. I will talk about the first time when we get to the letter S.

Now it gets even more depressing. Our neighbors let their horrible, violent dog out while we were gone, and it broke into our yard. All the rabbits were in cages, but this dog somehow managed to tear the cages apart -- I don't know how they raised their dog, but the thing was vicious -- and killed almost all of our rabbits.

I was so happy to get home and go out and see the rabbits, and was met with a horrible scene. I can't even describe to you how horrible it was to see that.

We had maybe two rabbits left, and I was always in charge of catching them. I was always gentle with them, and they liked me. This time, however, the rabbit I was trying to catch was terrified. When I tried to catch the poor thing, it bit my ankle and held on. My instincts made me fling it off by kicking my leg out. My dad had to catch it.

My dad was so furious, he took one of the bodies of the rabbits and laid it on the front porch of the idiots who let out Cujo. Those people were jerks anyway. No wonder their dog turned out that way. They probably beat the thing or something.

We never raised rabbits again. My parents thought about it again after we moved into a house that had a fence that was more secure, but there is more rural land in the area, so we feared that other wildlife may get to them. We never wanted to go through anything like that again.