Pet Partners for Life - A Right Royal Vow

http://www.pressdispensary.co.uk/releases/c992952.php

Pet Partners for Life - A Right Royal Vow
2011-03-09

This year sees the magical combination of Royal Wedding and Chinese Year of the Rabbit! The Rabbit Welfare Association (RWAF) is taking a different twist on the Royal Wedding, asking rabbit owners to use the marriage vows as a reminder of the life long promises we should make when we take pet rabbits into our lives.


Remember your vows when taking on pet rabbits

March 09, 2011, Press Dispensary. “There is much more to keeping rabbits than many people realise”, says Rae Todd, RWAF Chief Executive. “People need to think long and hard about the responsibilities involved before they make the jump into rabbit ownership. Just as with a marriage, they should think of it as a lifetime commitment - to love and protect, in sickness and in health, for a lifetime.”

A Rabbit Owner’s Promise

LOVE - “Rabbits need companionship,” says Rae, “and, just like William and Kate, are happier when they are together. Ideally this should be in neutered mixed-sex pairs or compatible groups.”

HONOUR - “Honour your commitment to your rabbits, including spending an hour every day to feed and care for them, regularly cleaning out their accommodation and ensuring they are happy.”

OBEY - “Obey the law,” Rae warns. “The Animal Welfare act outlines what responsible pet ownership involves. For rabbits, this means companionship, daily exercise and good appropriately sized housing as well as providing the right diet and plenty of hay and water.”

IN SICKNESS AND IN HEALTH - “Rabbits need vaccinations as well as careful observation that their teeth are healthy, nails and coat are in good condition and they are eating all their food. Remember to check their bottoms daily for fly strike too. If you are ever worried about the health of your rabbits, you should immediately take them to a rabbit savvy Vet.”

AS LONG AS YOU BOTH SHALL LIVE - “Rabbits can live for up to 10 – 12 years. This is a long term partnership!”

The old notions that rabbits are cheap and easy children’s gifts are giving way to a greater understanding that they are demanding pets that require a considerable amount of attention and money. They should not be kept in a small hutch at the end of the garden. The RWAF has run a successful campaign emphasising that A Hutch is Not Enough. As a result there is a greater understanding that rabbits need interaction and enough space to be able to both hide securely and exercise actively.

Anyone who wishes to help the Rabbit Welfare Association improve the lives of domestic rabbits can visit http://www.rabbitwelfare.co.uk and join the association. Annual membership includes subscription to the quarterly magazine ‘Rabbiting On’. The website also provides a host of information about what rabbits need to live the lives they deserve. In the meantime, the RWAF hopes everyone enjoys the extended royal wedding bank holiday and encourages all rabbit owners to use the royal vows as a reminder that taking on pet rabbits is an equally big commitment.

- ends -

Notes for editors
The Rabbit Welfare Association and Fund (RWAF) is a registered charity, No 1085689 and is the official charity of the Rabbit Welfare Association which has about 3000 members. It is dedicated to improving the lives of domestic rabbits kept as pets in the UK.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION PLEASE CONTACT
Rae Todd, Rabbit Welfare Association and Fund
Tel: 07870 501 576
Email: rae@rabbitwelfare.co.uk
Site: www.rabbitwelfare.co.uk

Good article Ros

For the research for Hopping Mad! I went through all of the RWAF's site, and it's a really good resource. I'd like more information on the stance that the RWAF has on rabbits living alone, as it seems to me that the advice given and stance taken is slightly out of touch with the reality for many owners and rescues.

I completely agree with this statement "It is possible to keep just one rabbit if your bunny lives indoors as part of the family, with plenty of human company." from here . (My neighbour has a single bun outside, and it's bored silly, and I can't bear to watch him, it's awful. )

But I am a left feeling that this statement "Your rabbit should be housed with at least one other rabbit to satisfy its social nature. A rabbit living alone will have higher stress levels." ( from here ) doesn't really address the reality, and whilst it's an ideal situation, there are many rabbits who simply will not bond, don't like other rabbits and/or just want to live alone.

It could be said that I'm looking at this subjectively, because I have a single, attended house rabbit, but I'm not. The reason I have a single attended house rabbit is because the rescue that he came from recommended that this is how he would be happiest. The rescue is not only registered with the RWAF, it is held in very high regard, and they have, over the last 10 years or so, rehomed over 900 rabbits. Stewie spent 3 months there, and the rescue recommended this as best for him, and I took that advice.

My last rabbit, Bertie would not bond, we tried a few times, taking him to rescues, but on each occasion he was terrified of the other bun(s) and I was told that he didn't want to be bonded, that he was happy with us. He was an abused rabbit in the first few months of his life. Rabbits, like us, respond to learned behaviour, and although I don't know what happened to him, if he was repeatedly attacked, for instance, by another or more bunnies, then I can understand why he wouldn't trust another rabbit.

There is a respected rescue on HH that currently has 16 (I think) rabbits that live alone, because they won't bond, and some of them hate other rabbits. They are all aware of each other, they spend time together in the garden etc, but any attempts to bond have failed. Again, rescues deal with a large volume of rabbits, and their experience in this respect shouldn't be discounted.

Another rescue took the stance that the RWAF has, and with a particularly difficult rabbit, after some bonding attempts, the rabbit attacked it's prospective mate and caused some serious injuries.

Personally I would to see the RWAF addressing how best to look after a single bun properly, rather than dismissing this option as something that is substandard and only to executed in rare circumstances. Lots of people have single rabbits, if they aren't going to get another one, then the welfare of their rabbit should be addressed, then perhaps I wouldn't have to look out on Buzz, next door, every day, sitting on top of his hutch, bored out of his brains.

Soory, that ended up a lot longer than I thought it would hope I'm making sense!

The reality of most rabbits (according to the PDSA Animal Wellbeing report 2011 - the state of our pets) is that 67% if rabbits live alone. The fact is that most are not likely to have even tried to pair their rabbits up and therefore they will be lonely and stressed. So, the message we want to get out is that they should be kept in (neutered, generally mixed sex) pairs or compatible groups where possible. We do realise that some bunnies are not easy or possible to bond. This does tend to be the minority and we dont want to issue a blanket statement to say that its OK to care for one bunny because that would give the go ahead to some people that its OK, when they most likely havent even tried.

Its an interesting idea for an article for RO - for the bunny that wont bond, we can certainly cover that in another issue.

That makes complete sense and I understand your position If what you have said there was on the website, I wouldn't have had any cause to write my post.
It would make an interesting article for RO, but as well as that, perhaps putting information on the website for people like me, who have a single bun that only likes people, as to how to help these rabbits have a stimulating and sociable life with us humans?

I learned so much from my last bun Bertie about how to give single buns a fulfilling life, and I'm very glad of that experience now with Stewie. Things like clicker training , for example. Just cos a single bun is advised to live indoors, doesn't mean it won't get bored and/or neglected.
Unfortunately there are so many reasons why people have one rabbit, ignorance, and mis-information from sellers probably being the main ones, and I think it's right that as a welfare organisation, you strive to make things better, but the people who do only have one bun have no or little information from the RWAF as to what to do with it, so the life it has is not nec. any better than being stuck outdoors.

Thanks for these suggestions, Jay. We're taking them seriously and looking to what we can put in Rabbiting On and possibly an information leaflet on enrichment.

Thank-you, sounds like a plan
I was thinking last night that if there are 1.6M rabbits in the UK, and 67% live alone, then that's 1,072000 single rabbits. With the best will in the world, you're not going to be able to create that many rabbit partners without an extensive breeding programme - something I'm sure the RWAF doesn't want to promote.
If it takes a bunny generation (c. a decade) to get your campaign and message through, so that in ten years time, all rabbits are obtained, by whatever means, in pairs, that would be great! But right now we have over a million rabbits in this country who will spend their life alone, the majority of them in a hutch outdoors. Even with a sustained campaign to address this problem now, you're not going to get that many buns paired up.
Addressing this problem by encouraging single bun owners to bring their rabbits indoors and help them provide their pet with an enriched life must be something that the RWAF should be promoting alongside the 'better in pairs' campaign, I think?

Yes, indeed, this is a long term goal. We're realistic enough to understand that only a small percentage will heed this press release in the initial stages and improve things for their existing rabbits, or think more carefully about the committments before ever taking on the care of one or more rabbits. But standards will rise provided we keep encouraging and giving out the right messages, and working together to achieve these goals.

Bringing rabbits indoors isn't necessarily the answer either. They can be destructive and dont suite everyone's life style because of the bunny proofing needed, (otherwise they just end up caged indoors rather than outdoors) and if it doesnt work then they end up outdoors again, or are harder to rehome, so we need some caution. We're also aware of houserabbits that are neglected. It doesnt follow that just because a rabbit is a houserabbit that it is always well cared for. I know of one rabbit, for example, who, in her previous home, was a houserabbit. When she came to her present home, she weighed only 800g because her family 'forgot' to feed her.

Enrichment is certainly something we are addressing, as that applies to both indoor and outdoor buns with the A Hutch Is Not Enough campaign - the start of which is focussing on allowing the rabbits to get from their hutch to their run, but there will be a new section of the website soon. There have been articles in Rabbiting On, and there are a few on the website too already, but we will expand that section. If anyone has any good ideas or tips that they'd like to share we'd love to hear about them.

Yeah, you're right, glad you're taking it up, I do think it's important.

The article on treat balls etc we did for Hopping Mad! was essentially about enrichment

Thanks for the link to Hopping Mad, Jay. I'm on a number of forums and Yahoo rabbit groups. Would you like me to mention this for you?

I'm not sure whether it's been mentioned in the World Wide Wabbits part of Rabbiting On. If not, would you like me to send the link to Leo?

That'd be great, thank-you We only launched it on Tues, I did speak to Anne Mitchell about it all earlier in the week, but any promo help would be much appreciated
We've listed RO in the directory.

The cover link is this one http://hoppingmad.mywebcommunity.org/