I Heart Faces - Pet Faces Photo Challenge

I have been wanting to post about our short-lived phase as bunny pet owners for awhile now and finally have the motivation to do so!  I Heart Faces is having their Pet Faces Photo Challenge this month and I'm all in because this little guy is so stinkin' cute.  I haven't entered one of their contests for awhile because in the process of transitioning to China, well, we just don't take as many pictures as we used to!  However, a few weeks ago we got to have this little guy around for a few days and I snagged a quick photo shoot.  Hop on over to I Heart Faces (pun completely intended) for more great entries and scroll below for the full scoop on how we ended up with this little hopper. 

How did that little guy hop into our lives?  Well, we currently live with my parents (as we transition) and they live in the middle of a vineyard.  Lots of bunnies live in this vineyard - cute little cottontails!  My family has three dogs, one of which loves to find things that move and eat them (yes, I said that correctly).  The Hubby & I were, fortunately, outside when she brought a tiny little bunny into the yard.  She was trying to play with it, but as the bunny didn't even have its eyes open yet it was useless at entertaining her.  Once we realized what she had, we nabbed him.  And thus became the beginning of our short-term stint as bunny raisers (or, more correctly, my sister's stint as bunny mama).

The sad fact is wild bunnies do not do well in captivity.  Unfortunately, we were unable to find someone who knew enough about how to take care of a wild bunny to take him.  We got goat's milk You think he's cute in the picture?  You should've seen him eat, man was he adorable!  And after he was able to open his eyes he would hop around, lose his balance, hop some more...it was awesome.    Hindsight is always 20/20, and had we done more research when we first got him we would've done things differently.  He only lasted five days.  After reading online, my sister learned that almost all wild bunnies die in the care of people within two days.  Their immune systems can't handle the germs and the stress of not having mom around adds up to the lack of success in captivity.  The best case scenario would've been to find a wild animal rescue and rehabilitation center who could take him in.  However, the only ones in our area just take birds. 

So there you go.  I keep telling myself that letting the dog leave him in the yard out of disinterest (or worse, eat him), would've been worse.  Dogs will be dogs and they like to chase things and eat mice and gophers, but we couldn't let her eat a baby bunny!