Birthday and Other Updates

The new cage arrived today. I hadn't planned on putting it together until Sunday, but the sight of the big unopened box just kept nagging at me until I couldn't take it any longer, so there I was at 11:30 at night prying the box open and fiddling with galvanized steel cage sides and plastic clips. The clips did make it way easier to assemble, so it didn't take long to put it together and get Mickey and his stuff inside:

Positives:

1. LOTS more room for Mickey to move around.

2. Cage sits on litter tray, easy to keep clean.

Negatives:

1. The door opens IN instead of out. I understand the reason why (so wascally wabbit can't open the door by accident and get out) but it's going to be a pain in the butt when it's time to feed him. I used to have a cage with a door like this for Karnage and it was annoying as all get out to try to keep that door hooked up when it needed to be open.

2. It's going to be a little harder to reach in and get Mickey when it's time for snuggling.

I have put a straw mat and a couple of plastic floor covers down so there's no chance of his feet getting sore. If it wasn't for the fact that he is a lazy bun and doesn't always bother to get his bunny butt into his litterbox, I would cover the entire floor, but I have found that if the floor is covered, he ends up smearing cecum all over himself and whatever's covering the cage floor--which means more butt baths, which means seriously grumpy bunny.

Mickey wasn't exactly sure what to make of the new cage. He was more interested in gnawing at the bars in the hopes of getting a treat at first, then discovered he could pull back on the cage door and then let go so it would smack back into the side of the cage. One of the cage clips solved that problem. He hopped in and out of the litterbox, then checked out the straw mat and the floor covers, then had a nibble of the lettuce in his dish before finally giving it the "stretch test".

So far, it's all met with his approval, but I'm not tossing the old cage until I'm sure this one will work out.

In other news, Mickey has made a guest appearance in the blog The Bunny Funnies , which posts pictures of rabbits found on the internet. I follow the site on Twitter, and apparently they liked the picture of Mickey that I use as my Twitter icon, because it appeared on Monday under the caption "Sports Fan" . I was quite surprised to see it there, but I let them know that I had no problem with it.

One last tidbit: my son actually held Mickey for the first time in a long time last night. I was having a snuggle session on the couch with Mr. Mick when the boy came in and, without warning, scooped up Mickey and sat down with him in the recliner. This was quite a surprise, as the boy has made it clear that he doesn't hold Mickey because of the amount of fur he sheds. On top of that, he was wearing his favorite football shirt, so you'd think that he wouldn't want to risk it getting chewed or shredded by digging. When I pointed it out, he shrugged and said it was no big deal, he could clean the fur off.

Mickey really didn't know what to make of this turn of events; I kept getting a look that said, "Are you going to let him do this to me?!" until he finally realized he was getting petted and it wasn't so bad, then he settled down and was fine. He even tried to lick my son's face a couple of times, but the boy wasn't having any of that. Finally, the boy said he'd had enough and handed Mickey back to me so he could go clean off his shirt. Mickey immediately set about licking my face, whether to reassure me that I was still his favorite or simply because he needed to lick someone, I'm not sure.