The Story of Hannibal

My fluffy demon will be two on January ninth, as in next month! Which means I have had him for almost two years. Hannibal has lived in two houses and two apartments with me and traveled six hundred miles from Utah to Arizona. He's the boss of our home and the darling of it. My life would be just a little empty with out him in it.

It was around June of 2009 that Kris and I decided to say fuck you to the apartment we were currently living in and get a new furbaby. I had a beta fish but I needed something I could interact with just a little more than that. I had owned three house rabbits in my life and found them to be my favorite pet, so we decided a bunny would be the perfect option for us at that moment.

I checked my local humane societies and looked for rescues in my area but, strangely, there were no bunnies in the shelters and no bunny rescues. I can only assume it's because Utah is a strange state and the rabbit as a house pet hasn't really caught on there yet. They're still mainly an outside, ignored pet.

So I started looking around on KSL.com (sort of like CL) and came across pics of a fluffy little lionhead guy being rehomed because the girl was getting married, moving out of her parents house, and didn't think she would have time for him.
Lionheads are a relatively new breed. They aren't yet accepted officially by the ARBA. They are still bred and shown though, and I fell in love with the breed the first time I saw an albino boy at the pet shop four years ago. And while I wasn't on the hunt for any particular breed, I fell in love with the pictures of the fuzzy little guy. I emailed her and she emailed me and within the week I brought home a five month old, sable, double maned, lionhead.


Baby boy. Barely one and half pounds.

He was shy and very skittish. I set him up in my kitchen and opened the tiny cage he had been kept in most of his life and just sat and waited. Eventually he took his first hesitant look around. Poking his tiny eared, furry head out of the door and sniffing. He immediately pulled it back in upon noticing me, but it was a start.

Over that weekend I spent hours sitting and coaxing him out with treats and soft words. He had not had much human contact other than being dragged out of his little cage and handled for pictures and to have his fur dyed blue. (yes, he was a moldy green color when he came to me because the girl thought it would be *cute* to dye him blue. She did this to him twice) So he was nervous and suspicious of all humans. He did not hop, he walked like a rat or hamster. He had never had any sort of greens or hay so he wasn't sure if he should eat what I gave him. he'd run and hide if you moved too fast.

So it went, me showing him I would not hurt him or scare him and him slowly learning he could do pretty much whatever he wanted. Soon he was zooming around the living room and stealing Kris's socks. He began to follow us every where and beg for treats. When we packed up to move he was in the boxes and on our shoulders, into everything, during the twelve hour car ride here he was on my shoulder or hiding in my lap.

Now, at almost two he's the most brazen, in your face, I'm the boss bunny I've ever owned. He greets people at the door and jumps into laps to demand attention. He follows me to the kitchen to get in the fridge for treats. If the cat is asleep on the floor he will run over her and then chase her around to play with him, steal her toys and attempt to eat her food (we keep it out of his reach now) He jumps onto the table to try and steal my cheerios and he cuddles up to nap with me. <3

He's three pounds of holy terror and destruction, but I would not trade him for the world.