Another bunny legend, but not the Easter kind

You know, there’s so many things I write about and I think that was pretty funny and unusual – I’ll never have to write about that topic again.

Then we live another day and I find myself writing about that very thing. In this case: rabbits.

You might remember last year, when a giant rabbit got trapped in our cat room? Well, tonight I had to grab a wild rabbit with my bare hands…again.

Firstly, I must set the scene of the emotional mindset of those involved. Primarily the 8-year old boy-child. Our County does a very cool program for all 2nd grade students, they get to attend the YMCA for 3 days to learn basic water safety and skills. Those that cannot swim are given a set of free swim lessons to promote water safety. I love this, I think it’s amazing, it takes a huge amount of effort from the Y staff along with tons of volunteers who give up their afternoons to get in the water with these kids. They put an actual canoe in the pool and let the kids practice paddling and rocking. They teach them to use a life-ring, they expose them to life-jackets, they do everything you’d want; this is Y-Splash.

The only drawback, in our case, is that we thrive on routine and this does not fall into any of the routines of 2nd grade thus far. This can be particularly hard for kids. I should have seen this coming, I should have been dialoging with him about the bus ride, the loudness of the pool with all those kids, the fact the Y would look different than when we go to swim, that he’d have to change in a locker room with all his classmates, that he’d have to deal with his wet towel and suit, that he would eat lunch later than normal. These are all things he can easily do, and in fact we do on a regular basis, but out of context, they become difficult. As such, things were a little out of wack those three evenings at home. It took me two evenings to put this all together. After a lengthy battle at the dinner table over eating his chicken and him being sad that he didn’t like it but he was hungry and wanted to like it-I called it and told him to go outside until he felt hungry enough to eat. Because in my experience, being outside is the best way to reset dysregulation.

As we stood outside, things started to click for me and we talked about being overstimulated from the past few days and how it’s hard to do new things that you’re excited about but don’t know what to expect.

At least, we were talking about that, until he started screaming, “he’s going to kill it!”

One minute we’re talking about emotional regulation and the next he’s pointing and shrieking. I didn’t know what was happening or what he was seeing – were we being visited by the ghost of Y-Splash past?

No, in fact, he was pointing at our black cat, Bobby, who was crouched down in the long grass under the Japanese Maple Tree targeting a baby bunny. He was, most definitely, going to kill that bunny.

So I said the only useful thing I could think, “chase him!” We took off running towards the tree, which involves hurdling a small rock wall. Unfortunately, science wins because a cat is faster than a mom and a boy and Bobby got that bunny. If you’ve never heard a bunny in distress, I can only liken it to the sound foxes make at night. The sound that makes you think someone left a baby in the woods. High-pitched shrieking that simultaneously curdles your blood and triggers all your mothering instincts. Cue baby noises, cue sobbing from the boy, cue frantic woods scrambling from me. Apparently my thunderous approach through the trees startled Bobby enough that he dropped the bunny. We stood in the woods, mother and son, looking at an empty-pawed cat and couldn’t find the rabbit. Relief.

I said, “well, there you have it, the bunny must have escaped, all is well.”

It was at this moment I looked towards my feet and saw a Remy, with a mouthful of rabbit. The boy’s lip started to quiver again as he took a deep breath. Of course, I had all the dogs and the cats circling my standoff with Remy. I knew if I told him to drop (A of all it would be a miracle if he obeyed) and B of all, as soon as that rabbit hit the ground Chachi was going to pounce. I had no choice but to pry it out of his jaws with my ungloved hands and run through the woods away from the domesticated predators to release it on the other side of the fence. Yes, I know cats can climb fences and I know that bunny is a deadman later that night because hell hath no fury like a Bobby scorned. But the more important thing was to give the 8-year old the illusion that he had escaped, albeit by a hare.

As I gripped the bunny, he naturally started to panic and scrabble at me, scratching me with his claws and trying to bite me-

Oh, and BLEEDING ALL OVER MY HANDS.

Fortunately he didn’t bite me. Unfortunately as soon as I released it Chachi found his purpose in life because in case we all forgot he’s a spaniel and he. is. bred. to. hunt.

I made an abrupt 180 back towards the house and hollered, “everything is fine! That bunny ran off as happy as a clam! In fact I’ve never seen such an unscathed and happy bunny! Now go inside and WATCH TV because I need this day to END.”

Chachi spent an uninterrupted 10 minutes channeling his inner apex predator and pacing the fence line but as far as I know he didn’t find it.

It was 6:40 at night, I put the dogs to bed, I put the kids in front of the TV, I washed the blood off my hands (literally and figuratively) and I laid face-down on my bed until my adrenaline subsided to a somewhat bearable level.

Hard to believe these two could ever hurt anything…

And it is also hard to believe this guy could ever catch anything…