Remembering Newman and Befriending Bella

Two days ago was a year since I lost Newman. I miss him so much.

Often when you lose a pet, or a person from your life, you're told that things will get easier, and eventually it won't be so hard to think about the loss. I so wish this were true for me.

It has gotten easier to wake up and go to work. It has gotten easier to walk past the painting that I made of his, Benner's, and Blizzard's fur patterns that hang on the wall, along with Newmy's favorite toy: a set of baby keys. It's gotten easier to see photos of him and not tear up.

But my heart still aches like it did in that moment when I knew he was dying.

And writing this post has proven to be terribly difficult.

Though I did lose a dear, dear friend that night, I gained a new one.

Bella had been attached at the hip to Newman from the day she met him. She shied away from me most of the time and didn't like to be held at all. Though I had worked with her a lot, but a lot of the time with bunnies, that's not enough. When Newman died, Bella spent a good long time trying to find him. I thought I was going to have to get another bun, something I just wasn't ready for.

Bells kept to herself the next couple of weeks, and the house was eerily quiet. Then, sometime between when Newman left us and Abbey came to live here, Bella and I became friends. She's my love, my baby girl, my little beast. She looks to me for leadership, like a dog does. She comes when I call her, she knows when I am talking to her. She likes being curled up in my hoodie, and she bows to me to let me pet her or pick her up. She has gained about 37 new nicknames, including...

Bells, Belly, Belle-Monster, BellaMonster, The Beast, and the Toe-Less Wonder [one of her toes was recently amputated due to a freak accident].

Today was the day that I realized how important Bella is to me. I brought a dog home to see how the rabbits would react, and Bella froze completely, and did not move for the four hours he was here. I had originally planned to keep him overnight, but because of my baby's reaction I didn't want to take that chance and wake up to find her dead from shock.

As much as I want a dog in my life, I am not willing to risk even the slightest chance that Bella [or anyone, obvs] would get hurt in the process. When that realization hit me, I began to think about all we had been through this past year. And then I realized, it had been a whole year that Newman had been gone.

This past November was my third Bellaversary. She is about four years old now.

Purpose.

My rabbits and personal life seem to keep creeping into my cavy care blog, Tasha's Tails. I would really like to keep these things separate, thus I have created BellaMonster's Lair.

We were

My life with rabbits began at the age of twelve when I acquired Blizzard, a baby Holland Lop, from a family friend who is a breeder. Blizzard didn't have the a perfect life, as we didn't research proper rabbit care further than the Xerox'd sheet of paper the breeder gave us--No iceberg lettuce, regular out-of-cage exercise, the occasional carrot. My little lop died tragically at the young age of four, of fly strike. For months following her death I read several books and browsed websites on rabbit care. I found The House Rabbit Society and located the nearest chapter--T.H.E. Rabbit Resource. I became instantly smitten with Anniken, an red-eyed white angora in foster care. I got all set up to adopt him, bunny-proofed my room, built a big C&C cage, got the proper foodstuffs, I even had plans to sew a special carrier bag for him so that I could tote him around comfortably. A week before I was set to pick Anni up, his foster mommy emailed me to say that Anniken had unexpectedly bonded with his neighbor-bun. She wasn't willing to part with either of them at the time.

No worries.

My second choice was a pair of big New Zealand Mix brothers, Benner and Newman. We set up a new transport date and a couple of weeks later, my mom and I drove to Utica, NY to pick up the guys. I fell in love with them. They were so big! And real! And... squishy!

Benner and Newman lived a happy life at my house for a whole seven months before Bella came into the picture. Bella came to me from a bit of a neglectful situation. She lived in a space in my basement known as "the bunny room" that I had constructed that past summer for the boys when it was too hot above ground. She was happy for about five minutes. Since then, Bella has never been afraid to make her opinions about every little thing known to the world. Bella had an on-again off-again relationship with the boys until Benner died suddenly and unexpectedly early one morning nearly a year after Bella's arrival. A few weeks before his death he had a bout of stasis, but had been eating and playing perfectly well for a week before his death. Necropsy results were inconclusive but I suspect heart disease. Newman was quite torn up by the loss of his brother, as was I. In an effort to ease my Newma-Bean's pain, I moved Bella into our room. The two bonded fairly swiftly.

A few weeks into my second semester of college, the opportunity arose to move out of my mother's house and I took it, toting with me my respective pairs of guinea pigs and rabbits.

The next year and a half was rather hectic for us. Our family grew, and then grew again. The animals moved back in with my mom while I was on a work-related trip in Texas, and shortly afterwards we crammed into a tiny, over-priced room in a local hippie's house.

We are

Now living in a yellow house with a friend, we're nine strong, with our newest addition being a beautiful black bunny named Miss Abbey. Originally taken in as a foster, hopefully to be bonded to The Beast, I couldn't bear to part with this soul and adopted her on my birthday last month. Both Abbey and Bella have lasting behavioral issues which spring from stress and past trauma, and both have improved by leaps and bounds since being in my care.

Bella and Abbey are both great about coming when they're called, and Bella is very good about letting me pick her up. A pet on her nose gets her to "bow" like she would if a mate were grooming her, and she doesn't struggle at all when being lifted. I'm hoping to get Abbey used to this practice, but it may take a while as she is a large, naturally bony rabbit, and being picked up is probably not very comfortable for her.

We will be

In the near future I hope to foster a couple of rabbits, since it looks like my financial situation is going to stabilize very soon. I would really like to adopt a dog but I'm not certain that my rabbits would be comfortable with that, and I can't guarantee that the next place we move to will have room for a dog, or that I will/would have the time for a pooch. As much as I'd love to, I want to do what's right for all of us.

Oh, and by the way, this blog isn't gonna be all about rabbits. There will be other stuff too. Like recipes. And me blathering on about my personal life. [But not too personal.]

But rabbits are a HUGE part of me, bigger in fact than cavies. I love my porcelli, but I wouldn't be whole without rabbits in my life.