Wilbur, 1990–2003

I didn't even want a pet. At the time, I was living in a small apartment and was just getting settled with a new job and a new life after college. But a friend of my ex-wife told us about this rabbit, the runt of his litter, who unlike his siblings, never sold. In a couple of days, he was going to be given to the owner of a python for a meal.

Now, I didn't even know people had rabbits as pets. I remember seeing some rabbits in hutches as a kid, but I think people raised those for food. And they were those big white rabbits. When I first saw Wilbur, he was a little half black/half white guy so small you could hold him in the palm of your hand and still have some room. Just a bit bigger than a full-grown gerbil, I suppose.

So I found myself the owner of a pet bunny. I didn't have much money at the time, so his first home was a laundry basket. He was so little, I figured he couldn't climb out of it. When I came home from work that first day, I learned that I was wrong.

So his home became a laundry basket with an oven rack on top of it. He was too small to possibly push the oven rack off, I figured. Coming home from work the second day, I learned that I was wrong.

Next his home became a laundry basket with an oven rack on top of it and books piled on top of the oven rack. Still, I came home to find him running around the living room. So I watched him in his "cage." I watched him climb up the side and squeeze out between the bars of the oven rack. I rolled my eyes. This pet was going to cost me a lot of money, I figured. I bought him a cage reluctantly. Thirty bucks or so. I figured I was going to be stuck with this cage after a short while. I mean, how long do rabbits live?

Over the next few weeks and months, though, Wilbur really became a part of my life. While I was at home, he got to run around the apartment (except the bedroom-I learned quickly how hard it was to get him out from under the bed). We litter trained him like a cat. He followed me everywhere I went -- quickly earning the name "Underfoot" (like "Underhill" from Fellowship of the Ring). When I watched TV, I'd often lay on the floor. If I did, he climb up on my back and watch too.

I moved a lot back then, and imagined that every time I took him to a new apartment or house it was like moving a person to a new planet. Whatever home I had was his entire world. (He hated being in the car, and he hated being outside -- I even had a leash for him and would try to take him out into the yard, and he looked up at me from the grass as if to say, "Uh, where's the carpet? There are no walls here. What kind of crazy place is this?")

Most of all, though, Wilbur hated linoleum. He must have had a bad experience early on, involving him slipping on the slick surface. He was not the most graceful of animals. When he was excited, he would run really fast, leap into the air and fling his body around to do a mid-air turn. Cool, but about half the time he'd crash into a chair or the wall while doing this. So linoleum was just too much to handle. I could put Wilbur on a small rug and put the rug in the middle of the kitchen floor, and he would not leave that rug. Linoleum, tile, any kind of slick surface was shark-infested waters as far as he was concerned.

Wilbur was a Dutch dwarf rabbit, probably the smallest breed of rabbit there is. And, as I said, he was the runt of his litter. So I liked to think of him as the smallest rabbit in the world. Even when he was fully grown, he was about 8 inches long. But what he lacked in size he made up for in intelligence. One day, Wilbur was on the couch staring at the coffee table, upon which sat a bag of chips. He could clearly smell the chips, and he wanted them. The table was already pushed very close to the couch -- I suppose he could have jumped and made it to the table pretty easily, but the table had a slippery top, and that probably scared him. As I watched, he pulled a throw pillow from the couch with his teeth so that it bridged the gap from couch to table. Then, he walked across the pillow to the table.

I let him have the chips for that.

At some point, we tried to get Wilbur some companionship. The first was a little flop-eared rabbit we named Orville (get it?). Wilbur would not tolerate Orville and really abused him. We had to give Orville away (for his own good). Later, I learned that two male rabbits often don't get along, but an adult male and adult female might be okay. (Wilbur was neutured, so there were no worries about little rabbits filling the house.) Wilbur and the new female rabbit, Mabel, got along for about a minute and a half. Then, suddenly, they mutually formed into a writhing ball of fur and teeth. Until that point, I'd thought "the fur was flying" was only an expression. But the fur was, very literally, flying -- tuffs of hair expoded out of the writhing ball of rabbits. Like an idiot, without thinking, I reached into the writhing ball.

When I pulled my hand out, Wilbur was clutching my wrist with his teeth, hanging suspended like a circus performer. I bet you've never heard of anyone with rabbit scars. Now you have.

So Wilbur was destined to be a lone rabbit. I theorized sometimes that he hated other rabbits because he didn't want any reminders of his own species around. I think he believed that he was a human living among humans, and it was easier to deny his rabbit-dom if he didn't have to stare it in the face. He really liked humans and was usually very friendly. But if a Bugs Bunny cartoon came on TV, he got a little uptight.

There are more Wilbur stories, as you can imagine -- 13 years is a long time. He fought off cats, crawled inside chairs, got lost, probably lived in more places around the country than most people, and made a lot of (human) friends. All the while, he remained an unwavering companion, outlasting most of my friends and even my first marriage. He was, in fact, the only real constant in my life for those years. He sat next to me while I edited or wrote dozens of gaming products, two novels, and a number of short stories. If I've ever worked on something you've liked, chances are Wilbur was in his cage next to my desk or running around at my feet while I did at least part of it. Sue always said that he clearly liked me better than anyone else (my ex-wife said the same thing). I suppose I was really the only constant in his life as well.

As time wore on, Wilbur slowed way down. While he once was a little black-and-white blur racing around the house, he became more of a static fixture. He'd find a spot, often in the sun, and just sit for hours. He was still friendly, but now you had to come to him, rather than the other way around.

How long do rabbits live? Well, every book I've ever read says about 10 years, maximum. It was with some pride that I told people that, and then told them that Wilbur was 11, 12, and eventually 13. At the end, the vet said that he'd had a stroke. He'd been losing a lot of weight, and, well, it was just clearly the end. Animal people call it being "put down," but that makes it sound like Wilbur was dangerous. I prefer to think of it as giving him a well-deserved rest.

'Night, Wilbur.