Monday, October 31, 2011

Happy Halloween!



Happy Halloween Everyone!


 I love her face in this picture!! She did snack on the pumpkin during this photo shoot. (He's missing a tooth for starters...Not that you'd be able to tell.) I was originally going to dress her up, but this picture came out cuter than her costume one so we went with this one instead.

 Photo shoots with Duchess are always interesting, she is very active and is always checking things out. It was a big transition for me since I was so used to taking pictures of Maisy&Daisy, who were photo shoot pros and were very...Calm.


 Well I hope that everyone enjoyed the card and has a safe and Happy Halloween!

       Until next post,
               
               Duchess's Slave

 

 

Saturday, October 29, 2011

*THUMP*

This is me, telling you, to put me on the bed. Now.

 That pose displayed above is her demanding pose. She looks up and pushes herself up with her front paws as much as she can without actually standing up, and jerks her head backwards a bit like "Hey, why am I not up there?".

 Duchess has developed a habit of thumping whenever she doesn't get her way. To her, this means a lot of things: Not being able to jump on the couch (She tries jumping when she's right next to it and miserably fails) or jump the bed, or whenever she doesn't get enough treats/food. She was also at one point where she was thumping every time she jumped onto my bed, although she has now resorted to a quieter way of jumping up there so that way she can surprise me in the morning.

 Its probably worst whenever she is visiting with family. She knows that if she thumps she will more than likely get her way, which has resulted in more than her fair share of treats =D 
 

  Duchess's first Halloween is coming up, which means Halloween card! I'll definitely be posting it here come Monday.

   Until next post...

               Duchess's Slave

 

Tuesday, October 25, 2011

You did WHAT?

You tried to recreate my favorite treat...Seriously?

  Yep, you guessed it. I did the ultimate evil of trying to (sort of) recreate her favorite treat. Not replace, but simply try to make something similar that I can whip up at home. All previous efforts have been..Disastrous. Large bunny cookies that are extremely soft in the middle. Only once did I make something that they wouldn't eat.
  
   Today I started a new can of Pumpkin for her highness (I get the large cans of Libby's canned Pumpkin and give it to her occasionally with some benebac) and I always have left overs that won't fit in the container. I do give her some, but I still have some left, so today I decided to try (once again) to make some bunny cookies for her. Over the years I've been mixing bunny cookie recipes from various websites, and I think I'm finally happy with how they turned out this time.
           
  
 
  So I ground up some of her pellets and mixed pumpkin, and some whole wheat flour (lots of flour!) and this time I rolled it out more like a dough and flipped it onto itself so it was doubled, and used a small circular cookie cutter instead of rolling them into balls like you would with cookies. This time I put a lil too much pumpkin so it was too wet and I used a ton of flour to even it out. Once I used up the "dough" I then stuck'em in the oven(preheated to 350 degrees) and left them in for around 30 minutes, turned off the oven when the timer beeped, and left them in for probably another 10 minutes. The cookies I ended up with are around 1 inch wide and the thickness varies from cookie to cookie. Meanwhile Duchess was happily licking the bowl I had used for mixing the ingredients.
   

  Once they were done, she didn't hesitate to nom the one I gave her. They were a bit hard and the bottoms a bit burned, but I plan on remedying this next time by dusting the bottoms of the "cookies" with flour. The one good thing about them being harder is that she gets to chew on it longer, and she loves chewing on things.

Hmm...Whats this?


Tastes like Pumpkin...

I'll need to try another one before I submit my review...


 
  Lucky for me she likes them, because she's got a nice large jar full of'em. And she still has her bunny bites from the Bunspace Store. Its a win-win.

    Until next post...

                 Duchess's Slave


                    

Monday, October 24, 2011

Movie Time!

Must...Get...Treat...

 I finally had time to put together another little video. Only this time the music is actually in sync with it the entire time. I think this was her favorite video to make since she got extra Pumpkin Bites (From the Bunspace Store). She goes nuts for them every time she hears them, after she gets one, she won't leave you alone till she's absolutely positively sure that you're "clean" of treats.  

  This time I wanted to incorperate other things that Duchess does, and not just her binky skills. Now its just a matter of finding another song so I can start work on her next video. 


  Duchess has been doing fine. She kept me up this morning by constantly jumping on my bed and digging. The way she digs, its loud and hard to get back to sleep. I don't mind too much since I know to counter this by holding her for a minute or two before putting her down. After two holding sessions she wasn't jumping on the bed again.



Now it's time for up to the minute news of what Duchess is doing: 

   She just ran down the hall, disppeared into a bedroom..And now she's checking out the living room. Now, she's back in the hall! Now its back to the bedroom...And repeat. Now I'm typing one-handed because she has jumped on the couch and flopped as soon as I started petting her.

  
  Well thats all for now! Until next post...

                    Duchess's Slave



Wednesday, October 19, 2011

The Many Shades of Chocolate

 Sorry for the delay in posting, Duchess has been keeping us on our toes with her chewing attempts.

Does this pattern make me look fat?


  Duchess is shedding big time right now, and as a result she is looking very...Streaky. When I first recieved Duchess, I thought "Oh, she'll be my first solid color bunny!" How wrong I was. Even when she wasn't shedding she had multiple tones. Now that she is shedding, well, you can see for yourself. The richer chocolate color is her spring color, and that milk chocolate color is her winter color, and then she's got a dark stripe outlining her winter coat. Her face is dark chocolate along with her paws and tail. She also has a tiny white dot on her side, which is very hard to see in pictures. Also for some reason, she has developed an odd dark chocolate marking on her back, and I don't think she had that with her spring coat, or if she did, it definitely wasn't as noticeable.


  As of late Duchess has been getting into all kinds of trouble, especially the chewing kind. She has already taken out two phone chargers, before we were able to bunny proof the cords, of course. She has also been working on decorating the floor. Apparently her litterbox was "too far away". Please. The place she chose was just as far as the litterbox. 
 

 When I had Maisy&Daisy, I was used to being given attention only because I had food, which was fine with me. Over the years I was finally given enough respect to be occasionally "groomed" by one of them, usually Daisy. Maisy would only "accidently" give me a lick. When it was just Daisy, she was definitely friendlier, but she was still reserved. Duchess is so different from them. She is always coming by for attention and sometimes she even has to have someone around to "perform" for. I even get licks from her occasionally.

 Right now I'm working on a new video of her, but I don't suspect it'll be done until next week.
   
       Until next post...

           Duchess's Slave


Sunday, October 16, 2011

A Message From Her Duchessness

Hello there!

Duchess here, just wanted to say something really quick about something that I like a lot and I think that you could help me out with:



Look at me, now look at the picture below:
Now,look back at me,and look back at this
    
   While you may want to stroke my gorgeous fur and give me hugs and smooches, you can't. But, you can get an adorable clay figurine to look like your rabbit(s) (heck, even me if you wanted to) that you can have all your very own.
 
  So, have you ever wanted to help out a great animal rescue and get something cute and super peronalized in return? Well now's your chance.
 

 Meet Magic Happens Rabbit Rescue, a great rabbit rescue that is definitely making a difference here in Louisiana. They have helped find homes for over 500 (and counting) rabbits. They don't have an actual "shelter" building (Not yet!), so they are made up of volunteers opening up their homes to the bunnies that they get in. Right now they are trying to get tax exemption, and here's where you can help!
 
  Right now, I'm getting the slave to donate $7 (Per clay rabbit) instead of $5 for every clay rabbit purchased off of the Magic Happens Rabbit Rescue page on her site. Or, you can purchase 2 rabbits for the regular price and have $5 go to the rescue. Either way its a win win for Magic Happens! The only thing is, you've gotta be fast, as this is only in place until October 22, 2011.
  So, do me, and about 40 or more other bunnies a favor and hop by and see if you can help! Here's some pictures of some of the cute bunnies you could help out!!



   The slave will return to the regular blogging Monday. Until then, hope you have a bunderful weekend!
             Nose bonks,

                 Duchess

Thursday, October 13, 2011

The (Really) Curious Bunny

 You don't want me to go where? (Hops off in that direction)


   Duchess is a very curious rabbit. So curious it gets her into trouble. Well, she almost gets into trouble (She's a rabbit, she's got feet, so she's automatically lucky).
   A good example of this is what happened when she got into what we call "The Big Room" (its a large room filled with lots of objects, think if it as the Room of Requirement like in Harry Potter) we have lots of stuff in there that she could get into serious trouble with, so its "off limits". My room is also right next to this "off limits" room. Well you know how off limits things can be with a curious bunny around.
  
 One day I left her in my room, expecting to be gone for maybe an hour or so, and come right back home. She'd be fine, she has her food, hay, and toys. I checked to make sure everything was in order, shut the door, and left. Come to find out, I was gone for a good couple of hours, and when I came home, the door was magically open. (Well, maybe not so magical. Whenever our A/C kicks on it sometimes blows the door open)

  There, in the midst of all the stuff, was Duchess, looking like a wild rabbit in a field. She was standing semi-erect, ears straight up, nose twitching, trying to figure out who had entered her domain. I immediately started talking to her, but it was too late for that, she bolted under an object, I walked over to her to try getting her out, she bolted back out, but stopped since she was finally remembering "Oh, its the slave. She gives me food." I then scooped her up and plopped her back in my room, I didn't shut the door, but I didn't worry about it since I was right there, so I then surveyed the area for bunny mess and see if she chewed anything, but found nothing.
  In the meantime Duchess hopped back out again, but I saw her and picked her up again and this time held her for a bit before putting her back in the room and shutting the door. Besides the fact that she was curious,I believe that she had originally gone into the room to look for her slaves, as she was not accustomed to being alone that long without any attendants.
   
  Ever since that day we've been more careful about shutting the door, and ever since that day Duchess has tried to find more excuses to get back in there. The usual one is whenever someone leaves the door open she hops down the steps as if she's going to "follow" them (ha).

  This morning she was going to "follow" someone down, but as soon as I walked over to her she immediately turned her bunny butt around and ran up the stairs and was under the bed so fast I didn't get to say a word. 
  
  Oh, and that night after her adventure in "The Big Room" the internet didn't work...She had chewed the USB cable. Lucky for her we had an extra one. The funny thing is that she chewed that one cable out of at least 10 we had up there.
 

   

  Well that's all for now, until next post...

           
               Duchess's Slave




Tuesday, October 11, 2011

If you think YOUR day was weird...

We don't own cows

 
  This morning started normally enough. Picked up Duchess, bring her downstairs, go get her litterbox from right outside the door...Why are those cows looking at me?
   We live in a rural area (obviously) and apparently some of our neighbors cows got loose. And guess who's house they decided to visit? You guessed it. Ours. And yes, we do have a fence, and a gate, and all that good stuff, but when cows wanna get in, cows get in. Or at least thats the way it is with these cows. In the end we ended up shooing the cattle off of our property and down the road back to our neighbors. It sounds so much easier when you say it like that. Believe me, I got my exercise for the week. For the record, I do not blame the neighbors for not coming to get the cows, they were going to, but the cows were already heading towards our driveway and out onto the road. So we thought we would follow them out and nudge'em along,  and in reality the cows ended up back in. Since we were already down there trying to get them out, we might as well stay and actually see them out this time, so we followed them back up to their home, and tried to keep them from going in other neighbors property.

     Now back to the scheduled blogging:

Do you really need to photograph this?

  In between all of the cow business, Duchess was quite busy keeping me occupied with trying to get a picture of the perfect bunny yawn. As you can see, I failed to get it. It all started this morning when I saw her flopped and I thought "Bunny picture!" and I grabbed my camera and positioned it with finger on the button, waiting to capture the blog picture for the day. She then started moving and doing some kind of stretch Click! followed by a great big bunny yawn. I was too early. I missed my golden opportunity to get a Duchess yawn because of an eager "trigger finger". Throughout the day I noticed that she was having a flopping sort of day, and proceeded to grab the camera when she flopped, wait a few minutes for her to get a good nap in (like 10) and then try to snap a picture when she started stirring. I failed again, but this time I was no where near my camera (it was before I realized it was a flop day). After that I finally set the video camera on her, thinking that I'd get a snap shot from the recorded bits later. She refused to do another yawn.
  

 Last Friday though, I did manage to capture this:

   
                                                    
 Am I seeing things differently, or is that a good picture for a $99 camera (it was on sale...What can I say?) I got this picture while we were on the way home from Blessing of the Pets. Its pictures like this that don't let me chuck my camera out the window when I get bad ones.

        Well that's all for the day here. Until next post...


                              Duchess's Slave

   

 

Now ya see her...


Now ya don't


  Apparently Duchess has received too much time outside in her run getting exercise, because that is what I've been seeing all day. At first she runs up to you and you're like "Oh! Sweet soft bun wants to see me!" and she starts sniffing you out for treats. You barely get the chance to run your hand over her silky smooth fur before she's done inspecting you and realized you have no treats, and hops away. Then, of course, your first thought is "Fine. I don't want to see you either." But you don't really mean that and you go get the treats (pellets in her case) and come back, this time, she absolutely loves you.

  I always know when she hasn't received enough attention because I  either get:
A) The mopey bunny. In other words, the bunny who totally ignores you. Unless you have food, then she might nibble at it, but you aren't totally forgiven until she gets massages/pets/cuddles.
   Or
B) The chewer. She knows darn good and well that if she goes and chews on those books on the shelves that she will get attention, and she goes right ahead and does it.

  Or in severe cases (usually when I'm annoying her more than anything) I get this:
    
                     
Which means I better watch what I do to her highness or else...                              


   Now for another kind of "Now ya see her, now ya don't":

 One day about 2 weeks or so after we brought her home, I was in our living room keeping an eye on her while she ran around. In our living room we have a small wood-stove with tile surrounding it; she loves the tiling around it since it feels nice'n cool after she's just run around, so when she went and laid down behind it, I thought nothing of it. Until I heard what sounded like a bunny jumping and nails on the stove. I jumped up from the couch and went to see what she had done, but I couldn't see her. I started semi-freaking out since I could NOT see her, but I knew she had to be somewhere, so I opened up the door of the stove to hopefully see a bunny, and instead saw nothing but logs. I then looked around the back of the stove and at first I couldn't see anything, but when I put my hand back there and felt around I realized there was a smallish hole in the bottom part of it. I then went to the front of the  again and noticed a drawer in the front, so I thought "What the heck." and pulled it open, and there in the drawer with a nice pile of grey ash, looking small and slightly terrified, was Duchess. Soon as the drawer opened up completely she jumped out and ran under the laundry thing (it sits on wheels) and started grooming herself. I ran after her and then proceeded to clean her off. It was like she sat in a pile of white-ish grey dust more than anything. Sadly during this time my camera was no where to be seen. And no, she did not leave little paw prints on the floor, more like splashes of dust.


  Regarding the blog page, I always find myself editing little bits and pieces of it (the design part) so don't be surprised if it looks different for the next post. I know today at one point the whole page just gave you one big headache from all the different colors (I went a bit..Ah, overboard) but I think I am finally happy with the way it looks (I love her pose for the header that is up right now).
   Oh, and now you can see some of Duchess's video's on the left side of the blog on that handy-dandy video bar. The one with her doing a "hand stand" looking binky is "The Bunny Dance", her digging on the bed is "Whatcha Been up to DuchessBunny", and her on the flower rug is "Introducing DuchessBunny".


        Hope that everyone has a great Tuesday!

                          Duchess's Slave


  
  

Sunday, October 9, 2011

Duchess Protests

 "Hand over the real greens"




  I've discovered over the past month or so, Duchess doesn't really like Romaine, and she makes sure that I know it.



    At first I gave her the usual bunny salad I make, which is mostly Romaine, with some Cilantro and an herb (depending on whats doing the best). For dinner salad, its usually the Romaine, and different herbs. When she was first eating greens, she eventually ate them all (She was still figuring greens out) but she ate whatever was in her bowl. Later she started to ignore whatever she didn't like, such as Romaine (She also isn't a big fan of Rosemary...is it just me or am I seeing a pattern?), by leaving it in her bowl till her next meal. Since I didn't want to waste greens, I remedied this next trip to the store by buying more Cilantro and less Romaine, and she was satisfied with having more Cilantro and less Romaine. Well this morning I was running low on Cilantro and I just started a new head of Romaine, so guess what there was more of? Apparently the Arugula didn't balance it out, because she didn't touch the Romaine all day.
   
     Lucky for her, the Romaine was still edible by dinner time, so I simply 'refreshed it' and added more Arugula than usual, a lil bit of Cilantro, and she finally ate it. I've found that bunnies can only ignore food (even if it is Romaine) for so long, and then they have to eat it.



    
    We're not entirely sure how old Duchess is, we believe she's 3 years old, but she acts like a teenager. I believe that this is because for 3 years(?) of her life she's spent in a wire cage with little attention, no toys, or even hay, and now she's getting to do all the things teenage bunnies do, and get away with it. One thing is her chewing habit, she'll try anything, but her favorite is plastic, preferable the hand broom and dustpan. She also likes hardback books. And yes, she does have toys to chew on.
  Another thing when we first got her, even though she was still getting used to all the noises around the house and still looked nervous, she would binky anywhere. And I mean anywhere, including on the couch in front of (gasp) people. For Maisy&Daisy to binky, it had to be a VERY special occasion, and they would prefer that you weren't around to witness it. Duchess doesn't do binkies quite as often as that, but she still isn't shy about it and will willinginly do it in front of you. (See her video "The Bunny Dance", which is composed almost entirely of binkies.) The one thing that she absolutely has to have people around to perform, is her Diggy Dance, which can be seen in this video:



  



   She will actually come over to you, nudge you, and then go out and start doing it again. She prefers to do this dance right before I go to bed, and also at 6 in the morning, the only bad thing about it, is that when she starts to dig on the bed she tends to also chew, which is bad news for my sheets. She'll also pee on the bed, but she tries to aim for her litterbox that's under the bed (but between the wall and the bed). Needless to say, I have yet to see her hit her litterbox, but I know she does try.



      Well that's all I have for the day. Next up I plan on telling her wood-stove adventure (For the record, it wasn't on) and whatever mischief she's been up to.






                    Hope everyone has a great week!






                              Duchess's Slave  


  P.S Do you like the way the blog is designed now, or do you prefer the other way better? Leave a comment with your opinion.

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Welcome to my World

Thanks for hopping by!



 It was only a matter of time before I introduced Duchess to this side of the web. I suppose I should introduce myself, and Duchess, of course.

  We live here in the south of the U.S of A, Louisiana to be exact, where the summers are hot, the food is good, and the people are pretty friendly.

 About 6 years ago I started taking care of my first two bunnies, Maisy and Daisy. I only lost them this year, and I still miss them both very much. They were very special bunnies, they both had great attitudes and they taught me a lot. Maisy was the princess, very sassy and would let you know if you were in the way (or not) and she had a great passion for food. Daisy was very sweet, and would give just about anyone bunny kisses and loved to be cuddled (most of the time). I started taking holiday "card" pictures of them about when they were 4 years old, and I continued it with both of them until they passed away. Now I take them with Duchess. Maisy&Daisy were very laid back and it took a lot to get them upset, and they were great for photo shoots, as they would just sit there and look cute. Most of the time. Sometimes one of them would decide that the card need a little "action".





                                                                         Daisy left, Maisy right
                                          




Maisy (Left) and Daisy's (Right) 5th Birthday card
                                 

  In January of 2011 Maisy started to decline rapidly, she had lost a lot of weight and was looking poorly, she still ate and tried her best to act normal (as most sick bunnies do). We took her to the vet and we thought it was just a bad case of worms, until two days later she became even worse and had a hard time breathing. We brought her to the vet the following Wednesday (The first appointment was Friday) and we discovered that she had an enlarged heart. As soon as I heard the news I immediately knew that this wasn't going to be "an easy fix". She passed away in my arms that Friday. 


 Now there was just Daisy. I still continued the cards and pampered her, she was totally fine after Maisy passed, I honestly think she knew before we did that Maisy wasn't going to make it. For the next 4 months she was an only bunny, and she definitely didn't mind it being that way, but I of course had to fill that extra bunny slot.
    
 I am always checking Magic Happens Rabbit Rescues twitter feed/facebook page to see the new adoptables (Come on, who doesn't?) and I saw that they needed foster homes as they were accepting 8 bunnies from the 77 rabbit rescue in Fort Myers Florida. The posts also said that they were going to be getting in mini rexes (<--Magic word) so that immediately peaked my interest. I kept telling myself "No, you DO NOT need another bunny. Daisy is happy." but, I kept checking and pretty soon the bunnies came in and they posted pictures of them. I then proceeded to give in and send in an email saying I would LOVE to foster a mini rex bunny, first choice would be ___ , second would be Brownie. Well the first bunny I had chosen (A tri color mini rex) was taken, but Brownie was available. I took it as fate and said that'd be fine and we started working on a meeting date after she was spayed.


 On May 14 at Rabbit 101 in Slidell, I met Brownie. She was timid at first, but she started growing on me and my Mom who had come with me (she's a sucker for Mini rexes too). We had stopped by a relatives house on the way back to give the bunnies (Daisy was with us) a small break from the car and to visit with said relative. Nothing extraordinary happened, but we sort of let the two bunnies meet (with no ill results) and got to visit with Brownie a bit before hopping back in the car to head home.


 As soon as I got home, I brought her out in the back where there's a giant rabbit run and a hutch for them to shelter in while they're out there, and set the carrier down to let her out. At first she didn't come out, but she eventually did. She was nosing the grass with curiosity and slowly hopping around, and nibbling at the grass with apparent delight. Not too long after that, she was running around and binkying. I found out later that that was the first time she had felt and ate grass. In her previous life, she lived in a wire cage and ate pellets. No hay (Which she absolutely LOVES now), no toys, no attention. 




"Wheeee!"



Checking out the grass

 We then started thinking of names for her. Brownie was a very good name, but she need something...better. So we started racking our brains, and then finally it came to me one day when I opened up the freezer and saw Dutch Chocolate ice cream. Duchess!! Which of course then made me think of the Aristocats (Duchess! Kittens!), and for that very reason we almost didn't name her that, since every time one of us called Duchess, another wanted to say "Kittens!", but I finally got everyone to agree with it (Family, what can ya do?). 


 Meanwhile, Daisy was slowly declining. We kept bringing her to the vet, but other than a bout of worms, they couldn't find anything. On July 17 we adopted Duchess, even though she and Daisy still weren't bonded (They were at an Ok point and we had hopes they would eventuallypellets to keep her weight up. On August 30 we brought Daisy to the vet, she was having serious issues moving around, she was still eating and doing her best to act normal, but she simply couldn't. It broke my heart to see her that way, as she was once my little binky champion. The vet definitely wanted to keep her overnight, so I left her with her blanket and left, I thought she would pull through, she was still eating and her attitude was still fairly good. The next morning she passed away. I couldn't believe it. I still feel awful that she was left alone there. We brought her home the next day and buried her beside Maisy.


 So thats where we are now. Duchess is my only bun, and she has been a joy to have around. She is the best thing that could happen to me after losing my two bunny girls. 
 Duchess is always thumping for attention, especially if you're slow with pellets (which are considered her treat), and she loves having her head scratched.
      
    You can see tonz of pictures of her on her Bunspace page and see her in action on her YouTube Channel, DuchessBunny14. Another thing that Duchess is involved in, is modeling. Yes, modeling. She has been great with helping me create bunny figurines (All proceeds go towards Duchess). I make clay bunnies and paint them to look like customers rabbits. I started doing it in July to help pay for Daisy's vet bills, but since Daisy has passed on, I've been using the proceeds for Duchess's vet bills and other expenses.
 
     Right now she is featured on Disapproving Rabbits and you can also see her on The Daily Bunny.




  I'm sure I'll be on in a day or two typing all the latest Duchess doings, she is a very active bunny and I still have stories to tell. I assure you, the next posts won't be as long as this one...I hope. To all those who read this entire blog....Thanks for reading =)






 For now I will just post my favorite video of her:







 






 
                      Until next post...



                                 
                         Duchess's Slave