marlyse.comme, myself and my life
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Saved… for now.
Just when leaving the house for going to Heather’s I noticed the younger, beautiful, orange neighbor’s cat walking by the car, carrying his prey in the mouth. I instantly flinched and tried looking away, telling myself “this is nature, this is life” but I always flinched when my first cat, Sylvester, would bring a bird and this one seemed to be a big bird and seemed already lifeless, so I tried eradicating that image from my mind because I feel I’ll never get used to it, I’ll never stop feeling emphatic for the little creature.
While unlocking the Suzuki I watched Theresa, the other neighbor drive up with her car - we live in a cul-de-sac so I have not only 4 but 6 close-by neighbors - and this makes the orange cat dodge with the prey under the closest car… and within the time that Theresa pulled up and got out of her car, the cat lost it’s prey which suddenly got very much alive again.
It was not a bird, it was a young bunny.
And it made full honor to Agatha in Minority Report screaming “Run John, RUUUUUN!!!” - it did exactly that, it RAN.
The next few minutes were dedicated to drop everything and go to the rescue of this tiny bunny which was fighting so much for it’s survival. The cat had a ball and to it’s aid came the older - also beautiful orange - tomboy cat. I love these 2 cats usually dearly, but now I could have kicked them. They thought it was a good game, trying to catch the bunny under my hands. Lucky enough Theresa felt the same as I do and so we where 2 : 2 - but boy, these animals are definitely faster than we humans. And they were so excited!
So young but so intelligent! Right in front of a wood stack, tucked away in leaves it played dead and didn’t move. Only reason I saw it was because I saw it running there and stopping. It camouflaged perfectly with the environment, not even the cats saw it!
This gave us enough time to have Theresa go for a box. But once we got almost on top of the bunny to put the box over it, it ran again. And again we had to chase off the cats while trying to corner the bunny. We knew, if we let the bunny go, the cats DEFINITELY would get it. No way was I going to allow that. So the cats ran, so the bunny ran, so we ran.
And the bunny ran more - and jumped right into my hands and arms and stopped there, unmoving.
As I was already late, it became now a real problem. I couldn’t set it out, especially not now after having touched it, even though I had the inkling it was old enough to survive on its own. Of course Theresa didn’t want it, she tossed me the box and said “good luck” and there I was, needing to keep the appointment with my chiropractor and torn between helping myself and helping now the bunny. My own knee trouble won and so I put the bunny with box into our guest room, poked some holes into the lid and gave it some salad and some water, shut the door and locked-out our own cats and went to see Heather.
On the way home I passed by PetSmart, with images in my head of an already dead bunny in the box but all the same, I got some hay and stuff, just in case it would survive and stay by us for a few days, of course I went over the top with even getting a cage, but that’s me. While driving I called Joan and she emailed me a phone number of Operation Wild Life or just O.W.L., a place in Lawrence which takes animals in, but Lawrence is a drive and I wasn’t sure if they’d take the bunny or not.
As soon as I got home I went to the box and it was still there, all of it’s small body pressed into a corner, it had peed but not eaten and I felt so sorry for her - yes, I’m sure it was a female bunny. So we prepared the cage and the hay and water and all and set her into it. While handling her I noticed that she did have torn off fur and some bite wound. We put some Peroxide onto it, the best I could think of, and let her be in her cage in the yellow room.
While we let the bunny be, I called O.W.L. and lo and behold, they had a pickup shop pretty close from us and they were open until 5 and yes, sure, bring the bunny by, especially when a cat had it, the cats have some kinda bacteria in their mouth which makes them really sick and it will need to get some antibiotics. And how much does it cost? Nothing, it’s a volunteer’s thing. NOTHING. They take gladly donations, but it costs nothing. And yes, they’ll take care of it, no problem.
So I mounted my GPS and the bunny and found my way to O.W.L. - no fuss, they took the bunny and gave the antibiotics. I gave a donation, so happy was I that they exist! The lady there said the bunny had good chances of surviving, it well get picked up in about an hour and go to the main facility where they glue back its fur and check it out and it will be fed and observed for a few days and if it does good it will be then again let loose into nature. “No, sorry, we do not call people to let them know if the animal survived, even though we do hope to have this option in the future” she said. But I begged. And she said she’ll call me in a week when she’s back on duty and she’ll find out for me.
Happy to have the bunny in good hands and hoping she’d remember and call, I left O.W.L. - the bunny seemed saved… for now.
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Received as promised a phone call from the lady at O.W.L.
First thing she said was: “Good news!”
Then she told me that the bunny had been doing really good and eating a lot - always the win win sign - and on Sunday was let free again.
So happy.
Now, after this all I looked at their website and see how many birds they take care of - HA! - I hope the bunny won’t become food for one of THOSE.
But that’s part of nature and that is exactly the part I hate about nature.
It ran for its life, it deserved another chance for that alone. And it might very well survive just fine. The drive for THAT it definitely has well developed ;-)
Comment by marlyse — Thursday, April 6, 2006 #