Day 16. Wait a minute Mr Postman
‘Oof, was that the door?’ ‘What, where, have you seen the keys, are you dressed?’ It’s before 9am and there is a knock at the door. The internet order is here! The eight-sided play pen has come, along with the hanging chew, grass tunnel and sisal mat. It’s Christmas in March, lucky bun!
Unpacked, the pen is much bigger than expected. Bun Chop won’t know where to run first. I fix up the hanging chew. It’s not much of a hit, especially as in the process I manage to bang the cage and he scoots into his burrow reproachfully. Not even some conciliatory apple will coax him back out. He is such a grump. If only he knew the excitement to come.
The new pen is large enough to accommodate his cage and the tunnel and leave room for bouncing around like an idiot. Which he does as soon as I remove the cage top. He is out and running, exploring the new cage sides and worming his way into the most improbable of gaps between his cage and the side wall. He gets stuck and has to back up. Have you ever seen a bunny reverse? He is like a disgruntled pensioner.
The grass tunnel takes some courage but he finally runs through it at break neck speed, and then repeats it ever more slowly until he is brave enough to sit watchfully inside for a while before he jumps out and attacks it, dropping grass all over the carpet, but at least he isn’t chewing that. The sisal mat apparently isn’t exciting enough to warrant much interest. A cursory sniff and exploratory nibble confirms that it isn’t easily edible so he returns to the tunnel. With his confidence raised he jumps on top which causes it to promptly roll over, tipping him off and herding him into the corner. Bun is not amused. We’ve noticed he doesn’t like looking stupid. Take for instance earlier with the new dangle chew. His first attempt at biting resulted in it swinging back and lightly batting his nose. He didn’t want to know after that, he walked off as if to say, ‘you did not see that, I’m cool.’ He’s not even a teenager yet.
He takes to the new space well, he only honks once and that’s when he gets properly stuck behind his cage and I have to extricate him. That’s gratitude. He seems to like that he can stand on his back legs and really have a good look at things. We’re thinking of renaming him ‘meercat’. Of course, with him up on his hind legs like that he flaunts his ridiculously fluffy underbelly at us. One day we might be allowed to rub it but at the moment it’s deliciously out of bounds and the constant taunting is almost too much to bare.
An hour later, full of grass tunnel and having run a bun marathon he finally flops next to the sisal and falls asleep. That’s what I call a result.
