a rabbit tale

 Yesterday evening I heard my brother say that the gray cat who wanders around our property (but who I assume must belong somewhere) had caught a small animal. I looked out the window and thought it was too bad, but what can you do when they're running fast and you'd never catch up with them? This is what one thinks, isn't it? But my brother ran out.

I saw the cat turn this way with its prey dangling - I could see that it was too big for a mouse. The cat ran off and my brother was searching the grounds for something; I assumed he looked for the little creature. He walked back to the house, and laid a small rabbit on a beam of wood on the driveway. I assumed it was dead, but he said it wasn't - I didn't know how he knew, but he was rubbing it, perhaps trying to revive it - ? Anyway, he told me to call the emergency animal clinic a couple of towns over, to see if they would take it. He said, "I suppose they'd put it to sleep", and I said, "not if we insist we'll pay - why would they?" * I called; they said they don't take wildlife, but she gave me a website address with all sorts of contact information, so I picked one and began to call, but then he remembered something: he has a client who lives in town and does wildlife rehab, and she even hand feeds rabbits in her yard! She feeds them bananas, in fact! Yes, I guess it's well-known among rabbit enthusiasts that they love bananas. So I held the little one while he drove down to his business to get her phone number and call her.

For a good ten minutes I held a baby rabbit. I saw his little ears, felt his soft fur, held tight while he periodically struggled to get free. He had two areas where the fur had come off, and the bare, raw-ish skin was exposed. There was very little blood. So, I petted him, talked to him, told him I was sorry for the whole business, and tried to avoid touching those bare places, but that was hard - he was little. But he never cried, or made the slightest sound. Then my brother returned.

The lady said to put Vaseline on the skin and try to put the fur back over the areas. Yes, in one of them the fur was still there, just loose; the other part was gone. She said, "Put him in the garden where he may have been born (because they do go in and out of that place), and give him some banana and carrot, and some water, because they tend to get dehydrated. We brought him out, and set him down with the food. He didn't move, of course. We went off, but my brother went back there just a few minutes later and he was nowhere to be seen; he didn't eat the food. 

She happened to have a hair appointment today, and she told him that rabbits have fur which will peel off in that way to enable an escape. So, we are hoping this little one will heal over and be all right. Because his family won't help him. He is on his own. She said a grown rabbit will fight a young one over food, so there is no real family feeling. 

big rabbit relaxing - not our little friend

 But this is their life, and what they're used to, what they expect. But anyway, back to the beginning of the story, when my brother chased the cat, it dropped the rabbit and it darted to and fro. My brother was searching for two sticks, to pick it up with. But that didn't work well, and when he brought it over near the house, it must have fainted for a while. So, that's how he knew it was still alive. 

*A few years back, one of Diane's cats somehow got a baby bird on the ground in our front yard. He brought it to this veterinary hospital, and they euthanized it. So this is what he was afraid of, but they must have misunderstood him when he brought it in.