[Groop] Funny bunny

[Chris Schechner]

Although I was hesitant to read the entire Tone tome, I¹m glad I did. I¹m
sorry for your loss of Spencer, but it really did put a smile on my face to
hear about Marzipan and Sergio. I hope you two have many years of enjoyment
with your bunnies.

Chris (Glorko)


don 8/18/07 12:52 PM, Tone at Tone at moon-shine.net wrote:

> First off I have some pretty sad news. I know this will sound
> completely off-topic at first, but bare with me. Like Groo comics there
> is a humorous ending to all of this, which is fairly related to the
> Groop.
> 
> About a week ago our pet rabbit Spencer died. My wife had
> Spencer for almost eight years ever since Spencer was only a couple of
> months old, and Spence was very healthy up until about a month before we
> moved from NYC to PA. For those, who do not know, depending on the breed
> of a rabbit eight years is generally considered a fairly long time for a
> rabbit to live. There was not much we could do because surgery is
> usually not recommended in rabbits and especially risky with senior aged
> rabbits. We think Spence was suffering from ovarian cancer, which is
> pretty common in mature female rabbits.
> Unfortunately, the first veterinarian, who Spence was brought
> to, did not recognize Spencer was actually a female. That was why
> Spencer was given a boy's name. This is understandable because the
> younger a rabbit is, the more undeveloped their sexual organs are, and
> thus their sex is harder to determine. Luckily for Spencer, ever since
> her first vet visit she never really had any health issues, but that
> meant her sex status was not corrected when she was still young enough
> to undergo surgery. If my wife had known Spencer was a girl, she would
> have gotten her spayed earlier, which would completely eliminate the
> risk of developing ovarian cancer.
> This part of my e-mail is not particularly related to Groo, but
> I wanted to let people know the importance of spaying female pet
> rabbits. I only got to know Spencer for a little over two years and I
> consider myself fairly "manly", but I still cried and found it heart
> braking to watch Spencer die in my wife's arms. I know a number of
> Groopies on the list have children, who I imagine might actually have
> pet rabbits. I would hate to think something as simple as not spaying
> their rabbit could prevent their little life from hopping around a few
> more years. Though it is rare, some rabbits have been known to live up
> to twelve years, so Spence could very well have had a few more years in
> her.
> 
> So with that sad stuff out of the way let me get to the Groo
> related part of this story, which might put a smile on your face. After
> we got back from laying Spencer to rest in the backyard of my
> parents-in-law, where all the pets of my wife's family have been buried,
> we came back to an empty apartment. It did not take long for my wife to
> miss having a rabbit around, so I agreed we could get another rabbit.
> Even though I very much dislike having bunches of LITERAL dust-bunnies
> of fur all over the place, my wife's happiness comes first. :)
> This time however my wife and I decided to each pick out a
> rabbit for ourselves instead of only having one rabbit. Since my wife
> had Spencer ever since Spence was a baby, my wife was always Spencer's
> primary care taker. By having me pick out my own rabbit, it would make
> me more directly involved. More importantly though rabbits are very
> social creatures, so having two rabbits gives them company when people
> are not around. Some rabbits have been known to become depressed when
> alone for two long, which may cause them to become prone to eating
> disorders and health problems.
> For the past few days my wife was looking at the web sites of
> local animal shelters searching for bunnies. She had originally bought
> Spencer from a pet store, but this time she wanted to rescue a rabbit.
> We found a humane society not too far from us, which had some young
> rabbits born while their mother was pregnant at the shelter, so
> yesterday we drove over there and adopted two rabbits. :)
> We were able to take home one of the bunnies, which is a girl. I
> THINK my wife finally decided to name her Marzipan, which is actually an
> off-white sugary almond & egg paste used in making candies. The reason
> for her name is because the little bunny is practically all white except
> for an almond-colored muzzle and egg-yellow watermark-like patches
> around the rear of her back, and of course she is sweet like candy. :)
> Now for the WHOLE reason of this post... the other rabbit I
> picked out is a boy, who I automatically named "Sergio". The reason for
> my choice is because the rabbit is all white, but has a black streak on
> each side of his face along with black/grey rings around his eyes. The
> black horizontal stripes on his face make him look like he has a little
> mustache, and obviously the Sergio we all know and love is immediately
> recognizable by his wonderfully endearing handlebar mustache. I would
> try to grow one myself, but my wife really does not want me to. I guess
> I will have to live the handlebar mustache dream through my bunny
> rabbit. :)
> Unfortunately, I can not yet offer any photos to show you guys
> at the moment, so this e-mail is just a teaser. I will have photos soon
> after picking up Lil' Sergio Tuesday afternoon when the Lil' guy gets
> his lil' balls snipped off by the animal shelter's vet before he can be
> released. Even though he is a boy and there is no worry of ovarian
> cancer, non-neutered rabbits will sometimes spray to mark territory and
> tend to be more aggressive. Also, if we ever decide to get another
> female rabbit in the future, we would not have to worry about Lil'
> Sergio doing what rabbits do best. ;)
> I will post photo links as soon as I can. Best wishes everyone,
> _TONE_


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Check out my blog, Insight Through Hindsight,
my journal in cartoon form, at:
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