Tuesday, November 2, 2010

The Saga of Coraline

We've been through a lot with Coraline. I would put her age at around 2 years old, but she's certainly had an exciting life so far.
Somehow, she ended up with a "rescue" which turned into a hoarding situation. Was she born there? Did they buy her from a pet store? Did somebody give her to them because they thought it was a rescue? Who knows!
The hoarder eventually got overwhelmed and dumped his animals on a pet store. The shellshocked pet store called us and of course, Coraline ended up in a cage inside a dog kennel at the shelter on June 30th. There was nowhere to put all the animals (hence the dog kennel) so I picked one to foster, and it turned out to be her.
After things had calmed down a bit, I realized Coraline didn't really need any socializing since she was already a sweetheart. I brought her back to the shelter and swapped her for Sherlock. A few weeks later, however, I came into the Room and found her nesting. I can't believe we were clueless enough to not immediately suspect her of being pregnant - what can I say, we were distracted. Anyway, I rushed Sherlock back, bundled Coraline into a box and brought her home.
That night, after making her a makeshift nest from my own rabbits' fur, this happened. The next three months were a whirlwind of baby bunnies, trips to the vet and debates over when to feed greens. I'm not sure Coraline was very fond of us, since we kept disturbing her little ones and making her go to the vet and not feeding her till we got home from work. But we sure became fond of her.
So then we finally took her back to the shelter. Originally she shared a cage with her daughter, but Munchkin turned on her and beat her up, so she end up in a little half-cage by herself. Luckily, only a few days after she'd arrived, some nice people came in and decided to put her on hold! They just had to wait for her to be spayed, and do a meet-and-greet with their rabbit.
Except things didn't go according to plan. A few weeks later, after she'd been spayed, another man wanted to adopt her. The shelter called the original people, and they said that they didn't want her anymore. Great, you say, at least there was someone else waiting. Except, no. The new 'adopter' wanted to keep her outside 24/7 and was clearly uninformed about proper rabbit care. It almost got approved (ah!), but luckily the awesome shelter workers caught it and turned him away due to inappropriate housing.
Terrifying to think she might've ended up there, after all that. Thank goodness for the worker who caught it! It seemed Coraline would be waiting for a while. But no! A few days later, one of the workers called me to tell me a woman with another rabbit was looking for a spayed female.
This new adopter clearly knew what she was doing with bunnies. She sent me photos of her handsome boy at home and we talked on the phone about Coraline's personality and the best ways to go about bonding them. She went in to visit her and took her home that day!
She has already emailed me to say that Coraline is doing happy binkies in her new home. Tonight the plan is to introduce her and the resident rabbit for the first time. It's clearly a great home, so all my fingers are crossed.
Coraline, after all this, you had better like that rabbit!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I happen to know the new owner and Coraline could not have found a better home! Their animals are their "babies" and are very spoiled. When I saw the run for their other bunny, I wanted to move in! Congrats!

Anonymous said...

Happy update on Coraline - at the recommendation of a bonding expert I have held off on the first date btw Boxer and Coraline until the hormones have had a chance to settle down.

However, their cages are now close enough that they can get to know each other and last night I had them both out in the family room [separated by a exercise pen] for a run around. Coraline became a binky machine!

She must have shown Boxer a few tricks as this morning he greeted me with the biggest binky I have ever see him do!

All seems good!

Laura HP said...

Everything sounds great!
I'm so glad to hear Coraline is doing binkies everywhere :) Keep us updated! She is lucky to have found such a great home!

Kylie said...

What a cute bunnies. I have a rabbit at home and it is such an accomplishment for me to see her gotten so big after we have found her scared on the street. Finding a home is such a dream... so we build her a rabbit hutch which she can call her own.