5th Good Experience

Getting My Bunny, Walter

When I was little I lived with my grandparents on the land they bought several decades ago after my grandpa served as a draftee in the army during the Korean War. It was beautiful! There was a beautiful golden field that stretched out behind our fence for what seemed like miles when I was little. Next to that was a huge vegetable garden where my grandpa still grows HUGE delicious tomatoes, zucchini, carrots, and all kinds of veggies. We had three horses (every little girls dream) named Brownie, Mickey, and Minnie that we used to pet, ride, and feed apples every day during the summer. We had other animals too. We had chickens, a pet turkey that me and my sister named Henry, dogs, and cats. I absolutely loved having so many pets around, it was so much fun, and they were my friends! My little sister even wanted to be a vet when she was really young. But out of all the animal we had there was one animal that was more special to me than any of the other ones. It was an animal that was warm, cuddly, soft, fluffy, and quiet, just like me! They were bunnies, and they were my most favorite animal in the whole wide world!
As I got older the bunnies became more scarce, like the rest of the animals. They were not as easy to find, and they were much harder to pick up. I knew that they weren’t really pets, but that they were wild animals, but I couldn’t help wishing that they were just like the dogs and cats that would walk right over to me and beg me to pet them. Sometimes my younger sister, the “vet”, would be able to get a hold of them, and she would let me play with them and hold them, but they weren’t ever around for very long. Honestly it made me kind of sad sometimes, and the more I thought about it the more I wanted one of my very own.
Around the same time I was having these feelings I met my boyfriend Trevor, and I was so happy. He even said that I reminded him of a bunny! Eventually we moved off to go to the same college, and I moved into a dorm room with a girl that I’d never met, and life seemed to be happening so fast. When I moved away from my family for the very first time in my life it was hard for me. I missed my family a lot and Trevor was working constantly to pay for his tuition. I started looking at bunnies on the internet when I was bored. The more I looked at bunnies and learned more about the different breeds the more enthralled I became with the idea of getting one. However, I knew that I couldn’t ever have a bunny in my dorm room. Foiled again.
A few months after this Trevor proposed to me, and I said yes. This was the busiest time of my life up to that point because I was effectively planning my entire wedding by myself! I was too busy and stressed about my impending nuptials to think about bunnies very much, so the entire idea was put on hold in my head. In March we were married and after our honeymoon moved into an apartment together.
It wasn’t very long after Trevor and I moved into that I got bunny fever again. I was researching bunnies day and night, learning all about the different kinds, their breeding, their temperament, and even their size and ear shape. Within several months I was something of a bunny expert. Finally almost a full year afterwards I was e-mailing breeders and trying to find a bunny that I loved that was everything I wanted. It wasn’t easy because I had very specific things I wanted in my bunny. After dozens of e-mails and conversations with breeders I found the perfect one! He was an orange broken tri Holland lop bunny, and he was the cutest because he was also the runt of his litter. It was love at first sight, at least for me, and my husband immediately e-mailed the breeder to reserve my bunny for when he was old enough to get picked up. I was so happy and I couldn’t wait!
Something went wrong with the order however, and Trevor missed a step in reserving the bunny, he was promised to another prospective owner. I was heartbroken, it was like I’d lost someone I loved, and I knew that I’d never get him back. Eventually I settled on another bunny, and I named him Charles Bennett. He was a great bunny, but he wasn’t very people friendly because his owners were not affectionate with him. Because he was so grumpy we bought him a companion, and we named him Toby. Even though I lost one bunny I figured out how to get two in his place. All of my research and relentless searching had paid off! I had two full bred Holland lop bunnies.
Then the impossible happened. One day the owner of the first bunny that I had wanted e-mailed me. Her name was Sydney and she said that her other buyer had backed out and that she had been looking at the pictures of my bunnies on Facebook. She said that she would trade me the original bunny for the two that I had. She even offered to pay me for them because she said she could breed them! It was amazing. So we packed up our family of bunnies and on our way across the state we dropped off Charles Bennett and Toby to pick up the baby that we had always wanted. We named him Walter, and because I learned the business of breeding bunnies I finally have exactly what I’ve wanted for as long as I can remember. My dream to have a bunny that loves me is one I’ve been carrying for over fifteen years, and it came true this summer. My happily ever after…with a bunny.

Walter at 2 days, 3 weeks, 6 weeks, and adult.