A New Bobby Sketch and A New Arrival!

Hi everyone! I hope that I find you all well and that you have had a good few weeks, and a good start to this weekend!

As I mentioned in my last post both my hubby and I had the week off of work last week which was lovely, so we spent most of the week just being lazy and chilling out after a busy year. The weather was also not amazing for most of the week so that didn't make us particularly pro-active either, but we did venture out here and there; going to see my sister-In-Law in her new home, to have lunch and do a spot of Christmas shopping with my Mother-In-Law, and driving to Kent for the first time to visit my brother-In-Law and our gorgeous niece in their beautiful new home. It also gave me some time to start working on a new Bobby Bunny Christmas design which you can see a sneaky peak of below.

As you can see it still needs the colour and detail added to it, but I am pretty pleased with how it has turned out so far. I was hoping to have it finished by the end of my week off, however I have been rather distracted by a new arrival that came into our lives last Saturday.

It all started on the Friday of my week off when I went to go and look around the garden centers at the Christmas decorations with my mum, as we do every year. Whilst there I went to look at the bunnies as we usually do, but this time was a little different as I fell head over heels in love with one particular little bunny. She was in a litter of four Netherland Dwarf females, but she stood out to me as she was the only white one, and the only one that clearly had some Lionhead in her. There were also two Lionhead males in the next enclosure, but as I say there was just something about her. I haven't felt that way since I got both Dusty and then Milly and Molly and I honestly didn't think that would feel this way again, or want put myself through the heartache of loosing another bunny. Plus after having had my Mill and Moll for so long I didn't want to feel that I was replacing them.

Another factor was also that we don't have a garden and I wasn't sure about how I felt about having a house bunny, plus after having had two bunnies I said that I would never get one on it's one again. However I am also a strong believer that pets choose their owners and that owners don't choose their pets and I just couldn't leave her, and hot quite emotional about the ideas of doing so!

So after chatting to my mum for a while and making her see that it would actually be possible for both the hubby and I to have a bunny, and after seeing a lovely double-decker indoor hutch that would be a perfect fit in our front room I set about phoning my hubby for approval.

In fairness we had talked in jest about the possibility of having a bunny, my hubby he had mentioned before I left about a bunny that he saw with us at the same garden center the year that he loved called Thumper. So it wasn't quite as rash as it sounds, even though I hadn't really planned it.

So after getting the hubby's approval I set about talking to one of the staff members about her, and they kindly said that we could reserve her so that we could sleep on it. I think that they probably though that I was crazy as I had to go back and check before we left that they had definitely reserved her, but I knew that we would definitely be back for her!

So bright an early the following morning my hubby and I went to the garden center to pick her up. Again I think they thought that I was crazy as we were there before they even opened, but I just wanted to make sure that she was still there and to get her settled into her new home!

It was also a freezing morning that day so we opened all of the windows before we left to get her, as even though she had been kept inside it wasn't heated, and I didn't want to shock her system too much with the temperature change. I have to say though that at this point I was glad that she was going to be a house bunny, as I couldn't have put a tiny bun like her straight out in the cold at this time of year!

On getting her home I opened her little cardboard box and let her take in her surroundings whilst I set about building her hutch as quickly as possible. My hubby went over her box at one point and she went and hid her head in the pile of hay from her enclosure at the shop as she was so scared.

Once the hutch was built I transferred her straight over to it and left her to settle in. I tried to make the adjustment as smooth as possible for her by using all of the same bedding, food, toys, and food bowl that she had at the garden center, and mixed in her actual bedding from the enclosure that was in her box. Understandably to start with though she was very scared at every little noise, and got quite spooked by someone walking outside in heels and the sound of the metal bars of the hutch. At this point she wouldn't even let me touch her and would just run away into the hidy hole that we got her. She also didn't like the sound of plates being taken out of the cupboard, but by the evening I tried to gently stroke her as I put her food bowl in to gain some trust and she let me!

Below you can see my little bunny on the evening of first day that we got her home!

After some brainstorming of names the night before we got her originally went with Tilly, but it still didn't feel quite right, so in the end we decided to name her Florrie.

By the following morning she let me stroke her again when I fed her, so after I decided to see if she would let me pick her up. I wasn't expecting much, but she let me without a struggle and we had our first cuddles as you can see below.

 

Since then she has come on leaps and bounds! She comes out every day and plays with us on the sofa at the moment, as I don't really want to put her on the floor until she has her vaccines. She likes to sit upright on me, and also likes to snuggle and nestle her bum into my neck whilst facing the tv. Her little personality also is coming out and she is starting to turn into a bit of a monkey, using me as a platform to jump onto the top of the sofa and run along it. Most noises don't phase her now either bar the the hoover, which I didn't try out until late this week. She has also finally figured out how to use the ladder in her hutch which took a good few days after she first trialed out her jumping skills by hopping onto her hay cart. So now she likes to have crazy moments where she runs like a looney all around the hutch. Plus she is a little gannet and I swear that she has already grown somewhat in the week since we got her!

Below you can see pics of her hutch, her chilling in her hidy-tube, and the fist time that she jumped up on her hay cart which was then quickly followed by her finally learning how to use the ladder in her hutch.    

 

Both my hubby and I are very much in love with her, and he has fallen for her much more that her thought he would. He talks to her and even refers to himself as her Daddy! Holding her was also the first time that he had ever held a bunny let alone a baby one! I love having her around, and didn't realize how much I have missed having a bunnies until I got her. It's all of the little things like, the funny thing that they do, the smell of their fur, and being able to shop in a pet shop again. So you can expect a lot more bunny spam and a lot more bunny related blogs!

I hope that you are all having a fab weekend and that you are all getting into the Christmasy spirit now that it is December! x