(So humans should learn to be awesome owners.)

Henry and Harper, working it.

I didn’t originally want a rabbit. But Stephanie was adamant. We were going to get the little gray guy her friend was giving away, and we’d figure out the rest later. It wasn’t until we picked him up that we learned the dwarf rabbit’s name: Frodo. Which absolutely had to change. I was reading Walden, and Henry popped into my head right away. And it stuck.

We learned a lot about caring for rabbits, and some of what we’ve learned over the past five years made its way into my recent rabbit article for Angie’s List. When I was young, I used to chase rabbits across my parents’ yard. I used to devise traps, hoping to score a bunny as a pet. But I’m glad now that I was unsuccessful, because caring for rabbits is serious work.

Bunnies live for about 10 years, and their health, proper diet, and sufficient playtime are all important. Understanding how seriousness of G.I. problems is crucial. We’ve had to visit emergency vets a few times for Henry, who has a sensitive stomach despite the fact he eats like a pig.

Figuring out how to balance all of these responsibilities became more of a challenge when, six months after we got Henry, we brought home Harper. She was tiny then, but as you can see, she now dwarfs Henry.

Here’s baby Harper and her with Henry (for scale).

Henry and Harper modeled for my article. It was a daunting photoshoot over the course of ten minutes. Of course, this isn’t their first rodeo. Both of them acted in Animaux à Paris, a foreign language film, highly acclaimed by my French 317 class. And Henry performed in the short film Jamie Snodgrass: Class-C Mulberry Scout.

It’s been a wild ride with the bunnies, but I’m glad Stephanie ignored my pessimism about adopting Hen. As one vet told me:

Rabbits can be very social. And the rabbit patients I have share a very strong human-animal bond.

Read the Angie’s List article here.