Category: Humour: #barbarablogs

Hello everyone, it’s me, Barbara Rabbit, here again! As you may know, I write a weekly post here – you can find the older ones here, under #barbarablogs.

Like all bunnies, my brothers and I enjoy a few simple rabbit games. You’ve probably realised from reading my blogs that rabbits are incredibly intelligent. We need a lot of mental stimulation.

My brothers are both younger than me, and, I mean nothing rude by this, but Ned might not be quite as smart as I am. Gingee is pretty clever, but Ned doesn’t always pick things up so quickly. So we all have different needs when it comes to games. Our parents are pretty good at playing to our strengths and finding games that work for all of us. We’re quite lucky. (Don’t tell them that. I don’t want them to get complacent.)

Here are some of our favourites!

Fingers through Bars and Fingers round Ned

These are two of Ned’s favourite games.

Fingers through Bars needs him to be inside a cage, and a human will wriggle fingers at him. He’ll hop around on his hind legs all excited and cute. I don’t quite see the appeal myself.

Fingers round Ned is a game only daddy and Ned can play. Apparently our mum just isn’t very good at it. What you need to do is circle your fingers around his head and he’ll bob his head around like mad. Because he can’t hear very well, I think he really enjoys games where he has to look at things.

Climbing on Humans

Ned and Gingee love doing this, and I’m getting better at it too. It was quite difficult for me at first, because I couldn’t work out quite how to get up onto a human. It turns out you need to push with your back legs, rather than pulling up with your front legs! Once you remember that, it’s easy!

If you’re very brave and have a fun human, he might even move along the floor a bit while you’re sitting on him. Gingee really likes this.

Surprise Rabbit

Such a simple game, but so much fun. Sneak up on a human. You can climb on them or not, but you just need to appear really suddenly – you can either do it by walking quietly and slowly or by running at full pelt. It’s so much fun to watch them be startled!

Box

Box is a really fun game, and there are so many variations. We have loads of cardboard boxes right now, which I hear is because my parents are having a human baby and keep on ordering things for it online. But the best part is that most of the empty boxes end up in my room!

The rules of playing Box can be as simple as just climbing into the box, sitting there for a bit, and then getting out again. Sometimes you can hide in there, or wriggle yourself right to the back, depending on the size of the box.

But the best way to play Box is to get food involved as well – as is the way with all the best rabbit games! Sometimes my parents will put chopped up apple or little carrot sticks in a box and cover them with paper or cardboard, and we get to forage for them. It’s so much fun!

Plastic Baby

This is a new rabbit game. Our parents have bought us some little plastic babies to prepare us for our new human baby. We get to groom them while our parents tell us how good we are.

I really like licking the plastic bits of them, and they have yummy clothes to gently nibble. There are three, one for each of us.

Explorers Under the Bed

It’s really self-explanatory! If the humans will let you, go under their bed and explore!

I don’t usually find anything under there, but I really like being in the small space. Sometimes it is a bit of a struggle when they want me to come out, though. They’ve sent Ned or Gingee in to get me before now.

 

Stairs

Now, this isn’t a game that I’ll play. I don’t like the stairs, and if I have to go up or down them, someone has to carry me.

But Gingee really likes playing stairs. He says that the stairs lead to lots of other fun rooms and that there’s nothing quite as fun as dashing down them and then zigzagging back up. Ned does this really clever thing where he can jump up about five steps in one go, as well. He landed on our mum’s big belly last night and she made a really funny squeaking noise, and it was brilliant. What a great twist on Surprise Rabbit!

Finger Nibbling

This is one of my favourite games. It seems only fair – my daddy cuts my claws, so I should help to keep his nice and short too, right? He’s very brave and doesn’t squirm too much, although I think I have got his skin a few times. But sometimes that happens when he does our claws as well!

The best time to play this game is either after he’s cut up an apple for me, so his hands taste like apple, or after he’s eaten some yummy human food. I like it when he’s had Marmite because it makes his hands taste all salty. There was also a time when he’d had salted caramel and that was amazing. You never quite know what the situation is going to be, so I’d recommend testing this out on a regular basis.

Fellow furry friends, what are your favourite rabbit games? Humans, what do you like to play with your rabbits?

Until next time!

Barbara Rabbit xxx

Hello friends. It’s me, Barbara Rabbit, here again. Catch up on my older posts here!

So, I’ve been thinking. I would like a rabbit pet. Not a pet rabbit – I’m a pet rabbit myself. I would like a pet for myself. I know I’m getting a baby human soon and that will be lovely. But I think there are lots of other animals out there that I would enjoy living with as well.

I’ve been trying to think over the advantages to each one and work out which would be best for me. Of course, I doubt my humans will let me have any kind of new animal. They can be so unreasonable at times. I mean, it would only be a bit of extra work for them.

They wouldn’t have to do any of the training. My brother Gingee has learnt to do animal training. He copies what the humans do and he’s taught Ned to keep away from the stairs by doing a little growl and then moving him. It’s very clever.

So honestly, all it would really be would be a bit more cleaning and perhaps some more food and maybe transporting them on a very occasional vet visit. Hardly anything at all, really.

Rabbit Pet Idea 1: A chick

They can fly, you know. I’d be able to train it to fetch me the treats that my parents insist on keeping on high shelves that I can’t reach.

I’ve tried to get Ned and Gingee to do some sort of obstacle course run onto the top of the chest of drawers where the fenugreek cookies live, but they just keep on looking at me as though I’m mad. I can’t imagine why. As young rabbits (they’re only two), I think they should be taking plenty of exercise to keep supple and not develop arthritis like I have. Yes, there’s a bit of risk, but boys are meant to enjoy that!

Also, chicks are really fluffy, so it would be a bit like having another rabbit around. We’d take turns to groom it. And I bet the beak would be useful at times – we could train it to attack if needed!

Rabbit Pet Idea 2: A monkey

Opposable thumbs. Enough said.

I’m only thinking of a small monkey. I wouldn’t want an ape or a gorilla or anything huge like that. But a tiny little monkey that I could train to open doors and food containers for me would be really useful. And I bet they’d be absolutely brilliant at grooming!

They’d probably also be quite good at giving cuddles if I needed them when my humans weren’t available. At times, I do really like cuddles.

However, I think a monkey might be rendered irrelevant by my upcoming human baby. She’ll be able to perform most of the monkey’s tasks, I think.

Rabbit Pet Idea 3: A small pony or miniature horse

I could sit on its back and be a lot faster than my brothers when it ran.

Did you know that rabbits and horses are actually fairly similar? Yes, I know we don’t look at all alike, but our digestive systems are pretty much the same, and we could share our hay.

I’ve even heard that if you can’t find a rabbit specialist vet, you should try and make sure your parents take you to an equine vet if you need some sort of specialist treatment, as they’re more likely to know what to do on you than a cat and dog vet.

Horses and ponies even binky like us bunnies do!

Also, as someone who once lived outside, I think I’d be doing a tiny little horse a really good deed by adopting one and letting it live inside with me. I did not like being outside, so I bet my future tiny horse doesn’t either. Maybe I’ll present it to my parents as a completely altruistic act…

Rabbit Pet Idea 4: A small goat

Yes, I have Ned and he’s pretty much like a little goat.

But think about it: goats are pretty similar to us rabbits. They’re determined and feisty and furry and I hear they have a great sense of humour.

And they’re really destructive and sometimes I’d like some help in trying to dig up the carpet or tear up all the newspaper in the world. A goat could be a really good asset to me there!

The horns do scare me a bit though.

Well, those are my ideas, anyway. Does anybun else have any good suggestions?

Until next time, my long-eared friends!

Barbara Rabbit here again! Check out my previous blogs if you haven’t already – I have some good things to say!

Today I want to talk about a really important topic: how to make sure your humans keep healthy.

As we rabbits know, managing our own health is hard enough. Lots of us have been bred to have very flat faces which can give us breathing or eye problems, we are very susceptible to GI stasis, sometimes washing can be tricky and that can lead to infection… The list goes on and on. Fortunately, there are lots of great rabbit vets out there who can help our humans take care of us.

However, did you know that our humans can also get ill? And, as they take such good care of us, it’s only right that we return the favour!

I try to do little checks on my humans fairly often to encourage them to keep healthy. Here are some of my top tips:

Sleep is important if you want to keep healthy

Personally, I like to sleep for at least 18 hours a day. I’m getting on in years a bit, and it’s important that I get my rest. I think that humans don’t sleep enough.

It’s not always easy to make sure that they get lots of sleep, but there are definitely ways to encourage them.

For example, my mummy is having a human baby. Pregnant rabbits should sleep a lot. So when I first realised what was going on, I made a real effort to lie on the bed with her to encourage her to sleep. I’d pretend to sleep next to her (okay, okay, sometimes I was actually sleeping!) and she’d usually drop off as well.

As a bonus, human beds are usually ridiculously comfortable – have you ever tried one? You might need to get them to lift you up there if you’re less mobile, but oh, the flopping possibilities – look how comfortable I am!

But time your sleep right!

You need a good balance of sleep time and play time, and humans don’t always understand where the boundaries lie.

This morning, I noticed my daddy was sleeping when he really should have been awake. That’s okay – it’s my responsibility to make sure he gets up. I went to peer at him first, and then made some loud noises to ensure that he was definitely awake by the time I was done. I didn’t want him to miss out! After all, it was food time.

My brother Ned sometimes takes a more extreme view on this and will hurl himself into the side of his cage or a wall to make a loud noise. His way looks more painful and I don’t think I want to try it. Thumping works just fine for me, thanks.

Make them problem solve

Humans are quite clever, like us. That’s why I think it’s really important to challenge them sometimes.

Everybun knows the usual tests we put in place for our humans: can I crawl under the bed, is this wire tasty, can I break free of the cage, etc.? But they’re getting wise to those, so we need to think up some new ones!

I’ll share a fun one I tried a few months ago. My brother Gingee had a cat tree that he used to climb up. We were running round the room and I decided I’d try something new. I tried to squeeze between two parts of it and wedged myself in there. My daddy had to get out his tools and unscrew it completely to set me free! What a great problem-solving opportunity!

Don’t neglect their mental health!

Remember, stroking a furry friend is very important for humans. It can keep their blood pressure down and make them feel less stressed and depressed.

You are that furry friend. (Or, if you don’t like being touched, your sibling or mate can be encouraged to do their duty. You work hard enough!)

I don’t mean you have to give them free access to you at all times, obviously. I just mean that you need to keep an eye on them, and sometimes know that it’s particularly urgent that they give you a head rub. Those are the times you need to pester them. If they don’t do it of their own accord, nudge at them with your head, put your face in front of theirs, or maybe nibble at them a little bit. Even if it takes a slightly painful nip, you’re doing this for their health. It’s very important!

Are you already doing any of these? If you’re not, I hope you start soon! Remember, your humans are depending on you to remind them to keep healthy!

Until next time, my furry friends.