Seoulscapade

Meet Monty, a young male rabbit of 4 or 5 months old—he’s Panda’s new boyfriend. How he came to be with us goes back a few months, when we were reflecting on whether Panda might be lonely out there on the balcony while we’re at work.

Rabbits are social animals, and I often noted in the information I read that they were happier with companions. Then one day an old teddy bear was on the floor after we’d had a clean out, and Panda took a great interest in it. Next thing we know she was grooming it. That was probably the clincher that drew out a greater sense of obligation in us. We had to hook Panda up with a beau.

Sunah asked around at her workplace and searched the Internet. One of her co-workers knew of a woman who was due to get married and wanted to give away her rabbit. We were told that it was a male, that he was a lionhead, like Panda, and that he was around the same age. Everything seemed just right, so we said we’d take him. We found out later that none of the information was true, except that he was male and a rabbit.

We met the prospective husband one night at a subway station across town for the hand over. It wasn’t exactly how I’d pictured it, and nor was the rabbit. The guy just turned up carrying a cage with what seemed to be large rat in it. He handed it all over to me then and there on the sidewalk. There I stood, surrounded by crowds of Koreans on a busy sidewalk, all taking an interest in a foreigner with a cage housing a rat-rabbit cross breed. A taxi was waiting across a busy road and all I wanted was for the lights to change so we could get over there and be on our way.

The soon-to-be-named Monty just sat quietly in his cage the whole way. Not only was he smaller than I’d been led to believe, and not a lionhead, as I’d been led to believe, but he also seemed pretty dumb. Perhaps he’d gone stir crazy from encarceration. We’d heard he’d spent most of his life in a cage.

The Panda and Monty meeting was not a punch up, as we had feared, but sort of calm and orderly–so to speak. Monty was trying to mount Panda in no time. That was just a little too friendly for a first date. So, before bed, I rigged up some fencing on the balcony to separate them during the night.

While lying in bed, we heard what was Monty crashing through the barricades somehow, and I had to grudgingly get out of bed to rig up another divider. I collapsed his cage and used it along with other bits and pieces for a more formidible barrier. Really, we should have just stuck him back in his cage.

He pretty much chased Panda around for a couple of days until settling down. I guess having be locked up for 4 months would do that to anyone. Plus, he’d probably never seen or remembered seeing another rabbit before (of course, the same goes for Panda), let alone a cute, hairy female.

So now we know the real facts about the rabbit we volunteered to take. He wasn’t a year old because he’d been locked up for 4 months since he was a baby. I’m also pretty sure he isn’t a lionhead. In Korean, that breed is well-known and expensive, and people will just say a rabbit is a lionhead because it sounds good. I also learned he wasn’t fed all that much because the previous owner didn’t want him to get too big. I imagine his previous life had not been a cage full of laughs.

We decided to get Monty “fixed” straight away to add to his woes, and for that we took him to the same place where we had Panda done. When I say it added to his woes, this is only in the short term. Neutering reputedly gives rabbits a calmer, less stress-filled life. It’ll help Panda and Monty will grow old gracefully together.

Since the collar came off after the operation, all has been well with Monty. He’s been jumping around and has already chewed through one of my webcam cables. Everything is back to normal. I had to operate on the webcam to rejoin all of the wires. Amazingly, it still works, and so that’s back to normal, too.

Monty’s always such a cheerful fellow, a good balance for the sometimes grumpy Panda. The two bunnies are settling into what should be a long term de facto relationship.

Postscript: well, no, the webcam is not back to normal. Some colours are washed out and if it is moved sometimes, it reboots the PC! It’s headed for the trash. Monty, 1; Webcam, 0.