Watership Down

We have a bunny nest in our yard.  Or at least we did.  After tonight's incident, I am not sure anymore.
We were all out in the yard playing shortly before dinner time when my husband asked if anyone wanted to check on the bunnies.  The kids had discovered the nest/rabbit hole about a week ago.  I didn't know what it was, but we could all tell that some little furry things were moving around in there.  Matt looked more closely and concluded that there was a small rabbit family living in our yard.
Now this might not seem strange since we see tons of bunnies in our neighborhood.  The odd part is that we have a dog.  One that hangs out in the fenced in yard a lot.  A dog that is, supposedly, a predator.  In the fall we saw a lot of bunny droppings in her yard (a little area that she primarily poops in) and wondered what bold rabbit would purposely go into her area to do its business.  Now that we saw the rabbit home we realized this must be the culprit (or its family).
We all ran over to the nest while Matt found a small stick to push back the fur covering the door to the rabbit hole.  What happened next is a little bit of a blur.  I guess Libby (our crazy pitbull dog) saw the stick and thought she was going to get to play with it.  She pushed through our circle to get to the stick at the same time that Matt disturbed the bunny nest and all hell broke loose.  Baby bunnies bolted out of the hole and we screamed at Libby "NOOO!!!"  Scott disappeared.  Jane stood frozen looking at the bunny nest.  Libby chased one unfortunate little rabbit.  I think it squealed just as Matt grabbed Libby.  I hope it escaped.  I picked Jane up thinking she must be scared.
She was mostly confused.  The rest of us were shaken.  One bunny stood next to the house a few inches from his home not knowing what to do.  The kids looked on and after a few minutes, the baby bunny hopped away.  We all went inside.  It was so disturbing.  Jane kept asking where the rabbits went.  Scott laughed about how Libby tried to eat one.  Matt and I felt terrible.  Not only had we potentially harmed the innocent bunnies but we also almost exposed our children to a gruesome rabbit slaughter.  Not to mention if this could have harmed the dog in any way.
As is often the case in our lives, we were left wondering:  What were we thinking?  It was pretty dumb on several levels.  We can only hope that the little bunnies find their way home and that they still think our yard is a safe haven for them to grow in, even if it really isn't that safe for anyone.

Comments

[Laura]

I don't think I ever told you about CoCo-our bunny on Harvey Ave. CoCo was in her rabbit cage and was very much loved and adored by Emma. The Nor'Easter, "Storm of the Century" blew in and ooops, I guess we kind of forgot about CoCo. Rich goes out about 2 days after we dug out from being buried in the snow. He pulls poor, stiff, lifeless CoCo. Rigor Mortis beyond Rigor-we told Emma that Coco ran off into the forest. Don't feel bad-we're losers too!

[Barb Laurenson]

Look at it this way -- You provided Scott and Jane with first hand experience of the prey/predator reality of life!

[Lori at Spinning Yellow]

tac - Thanks for commenting. You are my first non-relative comment (I guess I should come clean that you are a great friend!). Yes, it was pretty funny. Sadly, it looks like the bunnies are gone. I guess this is good for our garden. I am glad that I did not get a photo of the terrified baby bunny. It makes it easier to remember this incident as comical!

[tac]

I know it's not funny, but the visual is hilarious!