Bunny's story

Bunny's story is a fuzzy tail.

I crack myself up. Anyhoo.

Bunny's tale is actually pretty fuzzy . . . Dan adopted her in 2006 as a older cat (about 3 years old), and we know nothing of her life beforehand. Except for the fact that at some point prior to our ownership she was declawed.

Side note: I disagree wholeheartedly with declawing. I will never declaw a cat. If you can't handle the claws, you shouldn't have the cat. I'm so vehemently against it I wanted to point out that the decision to declaw Bunny wasn't mine or Dan's, and I think he did a very kind thing by adopting an older, less desirable cat.

Bunny was Dan's Valentine's Day present to himself. He'd only been living in Oregon for a few months, and needed a friend. She's a long haired, technically tabby, ball o' fuzz that we keep shaved for reasons detailed below.

I must say, Bunny is the perfect friend. Dan says at the shelter she was listed as "Not a lap cat." Not sure who made that call, because they were totally wrong! He knew that right from the beginning. Love at first sight.

If I go to watch some TV, Bunny comes running so she won't miss out on any lap time. It's cute because she passes right by Dan and comes for me . . . Hee hee! Not that she doesn't like Dan, but for some reason when she has to choose between us, she almost always seems to choose me. Us ladies have to stick together, I suppose.

Bunny is the source of our word foof. It started when Dan and I first started dating, and I was hanging out at his apartment. Even then she would come running when she saw me, and I would see her sunny, happy face and say, "Little Bunny!" Which soon morphed into, "Little Bunny Foo Foo!" or simply, "Foo foo!"

Then I would sing her the song.

Little bunny foo foo, hopping through the forest. Picking up the field mice and boppin' them on the head! Down came the Good Fairy and she said, "Little bunny foo foo, I don't want to see you, picking up the field mice and boppin' them on the head! I'll give you 3 more chances, and if you don't behave, I'll turn you into a GOOOOOOOOOOOOOON! (Repeat, cycling down through chances until no more remain). Little bunny foo foo, I gave you three chances, and you didn't behave, so now I'm going to turn you into a GOOOOOOOOOOOOOON! The moral of the story, hare today, goon tomorrow!

I don't remember which of us first started calling her Foof, but I'm almost certain it was Dan. He's such a cheeseball about stuff like that. Whoever said it first changed our world. The word foof started getting incorporated into everything, first and foremost with Bunny.

As a name: "Come here, Foof!"
As an adjective: "She's so foofy!"
As a command: "Foof me!"
As a prefix: "Foofanader!"
As a verb: "The cat is foofing me!"

Now we don't really call her Bunny anymore, mostly Foof. Also "The Foof" and "The Original Foof" and "The Gray Foof." Some of our other pets have foofy versions of nicknames: Blake "The Orange Foof" and Gazelle "The One-Eyed Foof."

Even me ("The big white Foof" and "Foofy") and Dan ("Foofer").

Foof gave us a scare a few months ago. It was before we brought Ernie inside, so it was just Blake and Bunny sharing two food bowls. I noticed that there seemed to be some extra in the bowls when I went to feed them, but that in and of itself wasn't completely unusual. When I feed them it's not an exact science . . . usually they eat it all, but sometimes I give them more either in the morning or evening.

This is not coming out how I mean it to; I sound like I feed them willy nilly. Not at all. They get 3 feedings a day, 1 scoop total split between the two of them three times a day. I put their daily portion in a bigger bowl and don't pay a lot of attention to the meal size as long as they get the entire bowl over 24 hours. So sometimes it came out a heaping scoop at one feeding, and a skimpy scoop the next. You know what I mean?

At any rate, having a little extra in the bowl didn't really mean a whole lot, because maybe the feeding before they got a more heaping scoop. Or maybe one wasn't hungry in the morning, but got hungry in the afternoon. It took 24 hours to register that EACH FEEDING had quite a bit of food left . . . now I realize that Bunny wasn't eating at all.

At first I wasn't that concerned; the pieces had yet to all fall into place. In retrospect, I should have figured it out sooner, but don't we all say that?

Bunny wasn't eating, but what I noticed before that was that she wasn't hanging out with us. I talked about it before in this post--she loves sitting with us while we watch TV. So that was the biggest red flag for me . . . why on earth would Bunny be in a different room then us? A couple of times we saw her gagging up a hairball (apparently). "She needs to get shaved," we said.

It was just before bed that I finally figured out what was wrong, and it made my heart clunk in my chest. I picked her up because I wanted to snuggle, and I saw that her collar had frayed and a short piece of string that was still attached to the collar was actually in her mouth! It went all the way down into her gullet.

We couldn't see it because her hair was really long at that time. Poofanader style. She could hide an entire legion of kittens in that mop, let alone a frayed collar.

We took off her collar and she gagged when the piece came up; that's how far down it was. We took her to the vet, of course, and she had an impacted bowel. Poor thing had to be on laxatives for like a week (two?) and was crapping liquid.

And that's why we keep her shaved!

Bunny is the only cat I've ever met that is shaved regularly, but (perhaps in my imagination) she's also the only cat I've ever met that prefers to be shaved. She is so happy right after she gets back from the groomer! She bee-bouncy-bops around the house, and does her little "silent meow."

Her silent meow is the funniest thing ever. She just opens her mouth and . . . nothing comes out! Sometimes you hear the smacking sound of her mouth opening. It's adorable. It looks like her mouth is falling open in shock (Eddie Izzard talking about chiropractors: "They crack your bones, crack your bones, crack your bones! But sometimes the bones don't crack. Sometimes they just [he makes Bunny's silent meow face]").

Even though it's funny, and I'm certain it's her happy sound, sometimes it makes me feel sad. I'm not sure why.

Bunny genuinely prefers to be with people, sneaks under the covers when you're getting situated and falling asleep, and if you make her a burrito kitty, she'll stay cocooned that way for hours. Just because she likes it.