With the holidays behind us, Olga Betts of Vancouver Rabbit Rescue and Advocacy (VRRA) remains hopeful that Dasher and Vixen, a sweet son and mother with festive names who landed in her care in 2012, will finally find their forever home.
“These lovely little dark lionheads have been languishing in our shelter for four years,” Betts said, adding that Dasher and Vixen were taken to a vet to be euthanized when Vixen was five months and her son, Dasher, was about four weeks, just because they were unwanted.
“They are nice little bunnies, though they tend to be a bit shy and they hate to be handled,” she said. “But once they know you and trust you they will hang out with you, and even climb up on your lap.”
Vixen, Betts adds, was given as a gift to a family who “kept her in the backyard and pretty well just let her eat the grass, not much else.” When she had babies, all but three died and her owners decided to put her and the surviving kittens down. That’s when VRRA intervened.
“The vet they were taken to said two were in poor shape, one was near death,” she explained. “But that vet did not normally see rabbits so I told them to direct the people to my vet out their way. The very sick baby died there, and Vixen’s daughter, Dancer, was small and weak but lived for two or three months before she died.”
Now, all Vixen and Dasher have are each other.
“They are sweet, with no nastiness in them,” said Betts. “They are neat and non-chewy, but do need a little grooming and nail clipping, which they are very good about.”
The one other issue she’d like a potential adopter to know about is the fact that both bunnies have an upper respiratory infection that comes and goes – nothing serious, but a problem that hasn’t had a good chance to be resolved in the shelter environment.
Betts also emphasizes that Dasher and Vixen are a pair that “must stay together.”
“The best adopter would be someone with rabbit experience and no small children – unless the children were the quiet, obedient kind who would not chase or try to grab them,” she said. “I do think Dasher and Vixen would make great pets; they simply have never been given a good chance. Can’t someone take them home and love them?”
• Are you able to give Dasher and Vixen the loving home they’ve been waiting so patiently for? Read their full profile and find adoption info on the VRRA website, VRRA.org.
