Compassion and Courage

Compassion and Courage

Richard Adams wrote about it in his book, Watership Down. This is a book from my childhood that I would recommend to anyone wanting to understand compassion and courage in animals. It's a work of fiction of course but one of the more amazing things that I witnessed this past week was an act of compassion between our rabbits. Seems bizarre that I should mention them here when I could be writing about something related to humanity instead, but hold on, I think there is something that we can learn from a species that seemingly is only instinctual - what else would we expect from animals that are to all effects and purposes at the bottom of the food chain? 

Rabbit teeth grow permanently and must be worn down through gnawing and nibbling. The position of the teeth must line up so that they grind against each other. It is the way they are designed. One of our rabbits - Camembert has incisors that have previously required regular trimming because of the way they were misaligned. He started off not minding a routine trim (once every 6 weeks) but the frequency of the visits to the vet began to create a level of stress in him (every three weeks to a fortnight) and he went from being quite jovial before visits to very anxious when being put into a cage. Without his trim however, he struggled to eat and drink and this was potentially worse. After months of procrastination perhaps, we decided last April to make the decision to have his incisors removed permanently and he was put under general anaesthetic and operated on. Rabbits under anaesthesia have a higher failure/mortality rate that other small pets, so even that was a risk. The night he came back home from the vet, he looked weak and his eyes were either closed or weeping. I would never have thought I would be troubled so much to see an animal in such a state of discomfort and was genuinely unable to sleep until sitting with him late into the night, I witnessed him eating and taking a drink. Regular foraging/eating is essential for rabbit well-being. Camembert recovered and learned to adapt to eating using his molars and we adapted his feed in accordance. 

Fast forward to August and on our return from the middle-east, we acquired Yuki a new addition to the rabbit family in the form of a Himalayan dwarf, white with red-eyes and Siamese ear/nose and feet-tipped in grey. She is quite an adorable bunny especially with her gregarious character. Very happy to be handled, but requiring a claw clipping early on. At that point the vet examined Camembert again and suggested that his lower incisor was reemerging. It remained stub-like for months until this month it became obvious that both his lower incisors had fully emerged and that they were now beginning to curl back. Rather than a trim, we opted for a (hopefully final) op.  I feel strongly that the company that animals give to each other is important and Camembert's brother, Harrod went with him to the vets. He's the most reserved of the rabbits we have, but a brother, even when he gets grumpy at you, is still a brother. The first time around Harrod was instrumental in Camembert's recovery. Made sense to involved Harrod again this time round too.

We left Yuki at home - she's a playful rabbit, as already mentioned, but by mid-morning she sensed the absence of the other two. The day passed and when Camembert came home in the evening, he looked tired and again his eyes and movements suggested that he was in for a long night. Now I know that Harrod had nursed Camembert the first time he'd been operated on - licking him and keeping him close, but as brothers  they have been bonded since birth. To see Yuki lick and nibble Camembert when she saw him after the operation really blew me away. She must have sensed his illness and her compassion towards him was on a level that made me reflect on care amongst animals and what this means for us as people. 

I know we have people who care - who go out of their way to show that they care, but we are higher order beings, I expect us to care. However, we just as create and destroy equally and there are days when I feel that we do more of the latter than of the former. But to witness rabbits being compassionate and caring really made me think. We don't have the monopoly on compassion, on what it means to feel and care. There is much that we can learn just by observing these seemingly small things. 

Meet Yuki.
Photographed using a Samsung Galaxy S4 (Summer 2014)

Read also: Bright Eyes

Bright Eyes

So why would I dedicate a post to two Netherland Dwarf Rabbits? I'm not sure, tell the truth, but the pictures here warm the heart. If I think about my reasons further, then perhaps, it's a case of having been there once before. I also owe this one to my daughter who carries the badge for the next generation in the family who have taken up animal care whilst young.

 

Meet Camembert and Harrod.

Taken using my Samsung Galaxy S.

Whiskers and Tails

Cautionary Tale/Tail*

There is a reason that I don't like slugs - fat, ugly, slimy and destructive - but more on that in a moment.  To begin with, my story, where the moral, I suppose, is about sharing the truth, but keeping enough of it back so that you don't feel like you are lying.

Nostalgia, perhaps, clouds some of the more accurate points here, but when I was little, once, quite unannounced, I made an impulse buy using up every little penny I had saved and came home with a cavy. It was small, twitched its nose, had little bright eyes and ran around in the straw. I wasn't really allowed - we had rules around animals that had to be followed, but staring at me as it did from behind the glass window of the pet store, it adopted me as much I adopted it.

So I brought it home and called it Winnie. As in Winne-the-Guinea. Except, primarily because it was a rodent, my parents were not sure at all. .Notice, I said I started by saying that I came home a 'cavy'. Well popularly they are known as guinea pigs, though back then, in the 1980s, in Yorkshire, pigs, in a Muslim household didn't fit, so I had to describe the animal with caution.

Since the day Winnie came to live with us, I learned an important lesson in life - without lying, you pick your words carefully. Fortunately, I don't think my parents would have known the word for guinea pig in Urdu or Pashto, but they were sensitive around the word 'pig'. Really sensitive and looking back, I think I understand given their world view point. In any case, I would refer to my new pet as a cavy or a guinea. Winnie the Guinea. That bought me some time so that meanwhile Winnie would come out of her cage and nibble sunflower seeds sitting on my lap, even though my folk continued to eye her suspiciously. Something just wasn't right and it was only a matter of time before a slip of the tongue when the little creature was referred to as a guinea pig  - Winnie the Pig. I couldn't justify a pig, so after a few days in the house, it banished to a hut outside the house and was not welcome inside.



Cochon d'Inde

Once I got over the initial faux pas, my parents did however, put enough trust in me, to not make me miserable. n the ensuing weeks, it had several description changes. "It's actually from Guinea, hence the name Guinea," I think I pleaded. (Wrong, in fact - these animals are South American, and not African as I now know). After I did the geography thing - Guinea, (too far away, not culturally accessible), I switched places. India was familiar - my parents were born in British India, so I even opted for the name that mentioned India - Cochon d'Inde. French. Except Cochon d'Inde translates as Pig of India. Oops.

By the time I knew the word "cavy", Winnie was outdoors; though, like I said, I was allowed to continue keeping her. Summers felt long back then. She ate well, and played well and grew to a nice size. She loved the garden, would sometimes get to run and hide in my father's vegetable patch and was admired by the neighbours. She died one October, when a cold snap hit. I was devastated. Maybe it was the chill that got her, but I found a slug, on her cage, alive and well. In October!

For years, I believed the slug had somehow caused Winnie's death. The other kids in the neighbourhood backed me up and I grew a disliking for slugs. As an adult, I'm still put off by (after the rain or their sudden appearance in the dark on a damp night). I dislike the way they are attracted some of my favourite plants in garden. I dislike accidentally stepping into them. That turns my stomach. Be done with them - whether its plants, my shoes or Winnie!

Needless to say, I've been a fan of slug pellets ever since.