The woman’s face beamed with kindness as she discussed her recent rescue of a one-and-a-half-year-old bunny with my 12-year-old daughter. Surrounded by a Great Dane, a Siberian Husky, a cat in quarantine recovering from an illness of some kind, ducks quacking outside, and some chickens separated from the ducks in their own vast space, the woman clearly loved critters of all species and sizes. But there, amid all of them, nestled in a large cage, sat this bunny, nibbling on hay, ears up, ready to see if this latest guest at this rescue project would be “the one.”

Mind you, we only went to check out the bunny as my daughter had been begging for one for the four months leading up to Christmas. In that time, she had researched everything imaginable regarding caring for rabbits, including the catastrophic “hopping hours” incident that her newfound YouTube expert experienced with her own rabbit during a California-based bunny festival. She also discovered that hutches should never house a lagomorph nor should a rabbit ever be without some sort of “hidey house.” In short, she knew her stuff, which was good as the bunny we were only going to “check out” was now coming home!

“This is the one, Mom. This is it. It fits all the requirements we discussed. It’s a girl, it’s spayed. It’s not too big, not too small, and sooo cute. And Mom, MOM, it’s litter-trained and likes dogs! It will go in our room. We’ve rearranged it, and I found 25 pounds of hay we can buy.”

“Twenty-five pounds of hay! Wait? What? Where will we keep that?” I asked.

“in my room,” she proudly announced. “It’s all set, Mom. This is the one. Key words: Litter trained!”

I have to assume that the kind woman caring for the rabbit could see that I was going to lose any chance of preventing this adoption. Can we say “sucker?” Why yes, we can!

So here we are with a bunny named Cookie Dough, who actually didn’t end up in my daughter’s room, but rather freely roams in our home office, which has an attached bath, where the 25 lbs. of Timothy hay now resides. No need to rely on a faux-farm smell; we have the real thing. And for $33 on Amazon, you apparently can, too.

I also work from home in this office, so I’m on video conferences quite often, which I think Cookie Dough has figured out as she has chosen times when I’m live online to try to knock down various NIC-grids that block a particular path she wishes to pursue or she runs at lightning speed around the room (a “zoomie,” I am told). She also frequently does her famed “binky,” which I have learned in lagomorph language means that a bunny is exceptionally happy. I’m not sure my fellow colleagues on the Skype call would share in Cookie Dough’s delight if they could hear her zipping through an IKEA-bought tunnel (thank goodness for the mute button), but it makes my daughter’s eyes light up to know that her pet is enjoying her new life. She has definitely found one of her floats in her love of animals. I’ve found mine knowing she has discovered one of hers.

So we have a dog, two fish, and a parakeet (the result of an earlier four-month deep dive into research by same daughter), and now a bunny, all of which bring lots of smiles, and, admittedly a larger bottle of Advil for my husband and me. That being said, the zoo is now closed. Thanks for visiting.