I now have two rabbit tattoos. I once mentioned to my tattoo artist that I’m a rabbit-person, when admiring a little rabbit ornament on her shelf. While she was inking March Hare to my calf, she asked: “So what is it then with you and rabbits?” Yeah, what is it with me and rabbits?

[From 2002-2020 my tattoo count increased bit by bit from 1 to 8. During the past 3 years I’ve gotten 10 more, added a bit to one older one, and in two weeks will have one more inked, last one for now. Yeah, things kinda escalated in the autumn of 2020…]

So, let’s see. Me and rabbits. Those soft and furry long-eared creatures with a quivery nose and big front teeth. Even though I have dogs, terriers, and am very much a terrier person (oh, I’m really just an animal person, I love animals and will bond with any animals I encounter as much as possible), I was a rabbit person first (despite growing up with a terrier) and will be a rabbit person forever.

I think the very initial rabbit fancy started when I learned as a kid that I was born in the Chinese year of the Rabbit. That would supposedly make me gentle and loving, creative, compassionate and sensitive, stubborn and hot-headed. And while I can totally see myself here, I DON’T see all of my same year born peers there So, you know 🤷‍♀️ Still, I was born in the year of the rabbit. In my mind, it made a rabbit, of sorts.

Still, the actual infatuation came via real living bunnies. We got our first rabbit when I was 9 years old, thanks to my sister’s persistancy. I loved her, our “Pupu” (really, our imaginative name for her was simply “Bunny”, in Finnish), she was my dear sweet friend. I took care of her to her quite untimely death; she was sick for the last few months of her less than 3-year-old life. I mourned for years. And I started collecting rabbits. In any and every form. Little ornaments, cards, everyday items with rabbit patterns, you name it. Rabbits became my obsession.

Pupu
(or Vanha Pupu, Old Bunny, as we started to refer to her after getting the next ones)
Pupu was a huge “country rabbit”, “maatiaiskani”, as the farmer we got her from put it. She was a pure white albino, with red eyes and all, as an adult the size of a cat. Looking at the Wikipedia rabbit breed page, I note that she quite resembled the Blanc de Bouscat, but the farmer knew nothing of this. Not that any of us cared. She was our sweet bunny, breeds be damned.

Pupu lived in our kitchen, where she had her cage with food and hay and water, but was allowed to run free; in the night time and while alone at home restricted to the kitchen, in the daytime when there were people at home she had free reign of the entire apartment. In the evenings, she liked to snuggle with me in bed, until my lights out, when mom took her to the kitchen. I would whisper my secrets to her, and take solace in her soft neck fur when feeling agitated, which was often. Neurodivergent (though never even heard the term back then), teased in school, my life was not all happy happy joy joy growing up.

Even though Sis was the one who wanted it and whose wish was granted, it was me who was appointed to cage cleaning duty, and poop collecting duty, and later on poop cleaning duty, when she was sick and her stomach was permanently loose. I was a bit grumbly about this, but 1) I did understand that my 4yo sister was too young, and 2) in the end, I very rarely minded it for real, because she was my best friend.

Pupu came to us as a “small” kit, in quotations because even then she was already the size of a “regular house bunny adult”, if that is a thing; I believe everyone can sort of understand the concept. Maybe. Anyway, as said, she grew up to be huge, and being a female, she also grew a huge bag under her chin, a dewlap. She was an active family member, liked to be where the peeps were, was social and snuggly and most certainly very bonding.

One of Pupu’s favorite activities was to “organize” our dry laundry, which our ND family simply dumped on the sofa from the drier to await the moment when mom either was in the mood to sort them out or (more likely) ordered me to take care of the pile. Either way, the pile of clothes often stayed on the sofa for days, bunny “sorting” it in her leisure, which obviously resulted in all our clothes having little holes from the rabbit teeth. When she died, I revered those holes; they were a long-lasting memory of my bunny.

In February of 1987 mom took me to Japan to visit the family of my best (human) friend; they lived in Tokyo for a year or so at the time. We were away a mere week, or 10 days, but while we were gone, Pupu refused to eat. She missed us, the two family members who were her main caretakers and feeders. This resulted in her getting sick. Dad took her to the vet, but for some odd quirk of luck and life, the vet misweighed her, giving her too small of a dose of the antibiotics.

So, instead of getting better, she developed an ear infection, which caused balance issues, which broke her heels, which got infected and despite everything we/the vet tried during the following months, the infection spread to her organs and we had to put her to sleep. She wasn’t quite 3 years old yet. I cired for years. Seriously. And promised myself never to get animals again, never to get attached again. I’m both glad and sorry not to have kept that promise, but losing my furry babies has never gotten any easier and I dread the moment our dogs start dying..

Pupu, 1984-1987

Some 5 or so years later, when I was 17, my dear sister hit again and smuggled two baby bunnies home from my godmother’s “bunny farm” (she got a mini bunny and a floppy eared bunny and they were supposed to be of the same sex, but oops, they weren’t and next thing she knew, she had 80 bunnies in the barn of her parents’ old manor in the countryside) and I was sold again. My Jeri was a bit of a bull terrier of a rabbit, really, and in no time at all I was fully bonded with him. People often forget or don’t realize it, but dogs really aren’t the only animals with personalities and ability to bond with people. Cats do too. Rabbits do too. Rats do too. And so forth. And me and Jeri, we were bonded.

Unfortunatly Jeri needed to be returned to the farm only two years later when I got married. I couldn’t take him with me (when the marriage was unraveling 14-15 years later, this was quite high on my list of resentments, for I did want to take Jeri; he forbid), and he couldn’t stay with mom and Sara due to him terrorising the house and fighting with Sara’s Jami, even after being neutered. So Jeri went back to live at the bunny farm and my heart was broken. I believe his was too, at first, from what I heard, but fortunately for them, bunnies have a shorter memory than us humans.

Jeri lived quite happily for two more years there on the farm with a bunch of other bunnies, though not 80 or so anymore at that point; closer to 10 or 20 retirees. In the end he died of heartbreak, after his best pal ran off and probably got eaten by a fox. Jeri mourned and stopped eating, withered away, at not quite four years of age.

Jeri and Jami
(Jeri: Jercy, Jercyrotta, Jercyrat, Jerry Cotton, Tamiilikamiina / Jami: Jamsi, Jasmine, James Bond)

Jercy and Jamsi (because that is what we mostly called them, instead of their “official” names – as official as a bunny’s name gets i.e. what read in the vet’s papers) were tiny baby boys when they were smuggled to our home. Small enough to fit on the palm of my hand (one at a time). Jamsi was fully white, Jercy gray as a kit, but turned brown when he grew up. Both were of moderate size, maybe 4kg at most.

I originally wanted to have the white one, Jamsi, for the memory of Vanha Pupu, but Sis was adamant: she looted the bunnies, she gets to choose, the white one is hers. I had been taught to be the older and the wiser so yes, I gave up (my normal strategy with Sis was to first want the thing I didn’t want, so when she wanted it, I could gallantly give it up and actually get what I really wanted, but in this case, my emotions ran hot and took over). In the end, I was happy having Jercy. I would’ve loved Jamsi just the same, but Jercy’s nature matched mine better.

Jamsi grew up timid and calm, probably mostly due to being partly blind. His eyes turned a peculiar violet when he grew up and according to the vet, he was most probably quite bad-sighted, if not blind. What the ailment was exactly, we never knew or I don’t remember, but with it (and maybe just the way he was born), he was the sweetest gentlest little creature, and lived a good full bunny life with my sister.

Jamsi died a few months before Jercy, in the spring when Jercy died in early summer. Sis had to make the tough decision to put her sweet boy to sleep when he fell quite severely ill. The summer before that he was still very much alive though, but gave me a bad scare. Sis and mom were both away for a couple of weeks, so I took care of Jamsi, visiting him on my way to work at Linnanmäki amusement park where I had my summer job. While I was in charge, he got the sniffles, and I needed to take him to the vet, and was scared shitless that he would die in my care! Those sniffles didn’t kill him thoug; instead, to my utter relief, turned out quite harmless.

Jercy, on the other hand, was quite different. He was a fierce alpha male, who started fighting for dominance with Jamsi, as luck would have it, while Sis and I were at my then boyfriend’s family cottage for our autumn break. Up to that point the boys had shared a cage, but after Jercy beat up poor Jamsi quite badly, they were separated: Jamsi to Sis’ room, Jercy to the combo of our small kitchen and my adjacent small bedroom. Needless to say, they never roamed the house free, but were allowed free roam of their respective territories.

Jercy spent the nights in the kitchen because I was a light sleeper even in my teens and Jercy was night-active as bunnies are wont to be. I the daytime, while I was at school, he had both rooms to himself. When Sis came from school, usually before me, she was faced with the task of shooing Jercy to my room, behind a closed door, while she got a snack, for my tiny warrior-bunny attacked Sis (who permanently smelled like Jamsi) as soon as she stepped into the kitchen. Sis came up with all sorts of tactics that included e.g. my tall rubber boots, and usually succeeded in this dangerous quest.

Usually. However, it wasn’t an unusual occurence either, that Sis would call our mom at work: “Mom, come save me! I’m in the living room, held hostage by Jeri!”. If Jercy managed to slip out of the kitchen, Sis ran to the living room and closed the door behind her, after snatching the phone with her; the phone table was right next to the living room door, on the other side, though.

And my rubber boots, then. I still have the same pair of the tall Kontio-boots I had back then (since I was 14yo; back then Nokia still made proper quality rubber boots). Those boots of mine are the last remaining physical memory I have of Jercy. All the hoodies and tees he chewed have long been disposed of, but my rubber boots will probably last until I die. And bear the mark of Jercy: he once managed to bite through them, so I patched them with my bicycle patch kit and while I never would’ve guessed, that patch-work still holds as strong as ever, just like the boots.

With me, Jercy was a loving and devoted baby boy, much like Ace-mah-bully-boy is now. When I came home from school, he hopped happily around my ankles, nearly tripping me many-a-day. If I was away for the evening, I could be sure to find a protest pee in my bed (despite my best attempts at building walls to prevent this; he always found a way to get over them).

If I spent multiple evenings in a row with my friends, away doing whatever, third or fourth evening at the latest, I would find Jercy hiding under my desk drawers, refusing to come out no matter what. This always broke my heart, so I was constantly torn between having my “own life” and spending time at home with my baby-bunny. Needless to say, Jercy always came around and forgave me. Next day it was all forgotten and my lettuce offering gone from the floor, munched away in the dark of the night.

The only time I ever got hit by my “killer-rabbit” (as my classmates dubbed Jercy after the incident) myself, was this one time I was sitting on our sofa next to mom, Jercy calmly in my arms, and Sis had the audacity to approach! She came to tell us something, I guess, stepping one step too close for Jercy’s liking. Jeri went nuts, struggled to get out of my arms, but I held on tight. So he bit the closest thing he could, which just so happened to be my cheek. Unlike the bite scars I have on my hands from both Meggie and Timmy (quite similar situations of confusion and fight-whatever-comes-close), Jercy’s bite didn’t leave a mark on my cheek. Goes without saying, I would’ve carried the scar proudly.

Jercy, 1992-1996 / Jamsi 1992-1996

So, my career with bunnies ended with this second heartbreak of taking Jercy back to the barn where he was born (though to be honest, I had another heartbreak and mourning time when I learned of his death, despite the distance and not having seen him for a long time).

Nonetheless, or maybe even more so because, I still collect rabbits. I don’t have my card collection anymore, nor do I have all of the little proceline etc. rabbits that I used to have, but rabbits are all around our house and I stil try to find a new rabbit item from each trip, as my own little souvenir. I have bunny mugs, bunny plates, bunny figurines (of all sorts of materials), bunny lamps, bunny hooks, bunny pictures on the walls, bunny “statues”, bunny soft toys… you name it. Kids always laughed when their friends came to visit and were like: “Hmm, your mom seems to like rabbits”. Yeah, no kiddin’, right

Be it due to Chinese horoscope (krhm, not) or those two way too brief times of having a bunny in my life, I have always identified with rabbits in general. They’re quirky, bouncy (ah, ADHD), loving, intelligent, alert, even fierce. Rabbits are my totem animal. Or one of them anyway, the initial one. That’s why my artowrk page is Artzy Bunny. That’s why I paint and draw rabbits so much, always have. That’s why my first tattoo was a rabbit and my “We’re all mad here” tattoo is March Hare, not Chesire Cat. I am rabbit.

So, that’s the deal with me and rabbits.

P.S. The title of this post is a Snoopy quote. Back when I was a teen I had this desktop cover mat of solid color (boring!), so I decorated it with all sorts of pics and whatnots. One of the things there (the only one I remember, actually), was this comic strip cut from a daily paper, where Snoopy had gone missing and Chuck finally found him at the mall, looking at bunnies through the window of a pet shop. Snoopy had the bubble explaining his absence: “Pupuja! Ooh, minusta on ihanaa katsella pupuja!” – “Bunnies! Aww, I love to watch bunnies!”. I have tried and failed, multiple times over the years, to find this strip on the Internet. Not found. Total Internet fail.