Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Ouško Visits Jesse

Speaking of rabbits...
Since Jesse couldn't attend Alex's Thanksgiving dinner due to concerts in Brno, he persuaded me that I should spend some time in Brno on my way back to Prague. We went to several performances, which I may discuss if I ever get around to it. I will note that I got to be the camera-person for his interview with Zuzana Lapčíková, despite my never having previously used a video camera. My job consisted mainly of watching the battery level and trying to keep Jesse's head out of the picture.
But on the rabbit topic, we finally decided that Jesse's long-eared neighbor deserved to come in for a hop around. We would have brought in the gerbil as well, but we were afraid it would disappear somewhere.
We had thought about bringing in the rabbit before, but I suppose the fact that he used to share his cage with the gerbil was a deterrent. After chasing the gerbil all up and down the stairs and the walls and preventing it from jumping onto a roof, I wasn't too anxious to lose it in Jesse's plumbing or heating.
The rabbit has, over time, developed a very jaundiced attitude about life, and who can blame him? He lives in an insanely small cage, is always hungry, and has nothing to do. He usually has a frustrated and angry look in his eye, and sometimes bites in order to keep strange hands out of his domain. At the same time, he is madly eager for human attention.
It took Ouško a few minutes to venture out of his cage, even though I had put down a towel for him to land on, and Jesse had brought forth a piece of carrot. Once out, he had to assure himself that he could retreat.
As the night progressed, however, Ouško became more and more eager to explore. He went into the hall a couple of times, scuttled behind the mirror, and decided he particularly liked the area under the cimbalom. His entire expression changed and he began to look like a real rabbit, curious and (almost) playful.
We would have let him spend the night, but we knew his humans would be up earlier than we would, and while we don't think they are very good at caring for small mammals, they're probably nonetheless quite fond of Ouško and would be upset if it appeared he had been stolen. I finally lured him back into the cage with a second piece of carrot and returned him to the landing, but I would rather have had him visiting me during the night and putting his extremely small front paws on me, as he did a couple of times when checking out his surroundings. He's a good rabbit at heart, and with the right attention he could be very nice.
I wanted to take his picture scampering about, but I didn't think he would like the flash.

4 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Poor bunny! How nice of you to give him a little vacation!

November 30, 2006 6:35 AM  
Blogger Karla said...

Looks like I'll get to see him at least once more before Jesse leaves. I had better take along some treats.

December 01, 2006 12:28 AM  
Blogger Hubert said...

Who named him Ouško?

December 01, 2006 3:41 PM  
Blogger Karla said...

Jesse overheard his name one day. He's probably named after a children's book character. I saw the book in a store window recently.

December 02, 2006 12:52 PM  

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