Adventures in toe nail...

6/08/2010 10:41:00 pm

Some background for you: when a bunny lives in a house, and has free roam of the house and its nice soft carpet, and does little in the way of actual-rabbit-behaviour, the bunny gets long toenails. And, because a bunny only has feet (rather than pads like cats and dogs), the nails must be trimmed very regularly so that the small bunny foot sits on the ground properly.

They don't really tell you this when you are looking at pictures of unbearably cute baby bunnies.

I googled and looked at many youtubes for advice on how to wrangle and nail-trim, but all the videos used huge, docile rabbits as their models. Huge docile bunnies, unlike Binky, who is tiny and wriggly and had, at that point, long sharp nails that were (and continue to be...) capable of much damage.

All the advice suggested trancing, or wrapping in bunny burrito, or holding the naked bunny firmly enough that the clipping could be done (HAH effing HAHAH
AHAHAH.....sorry, I just fell off my chair at that last one). You have to bear in mind, that up until about 3 weeks ago I couldn't even hold the damn rabbit without losing at least one eyeball and gaining a new bleeding scratch. What to do, what to do?

We mastered it eventually.

Step 1. Restrain the bunny.
Restrain the bunny

Step 2. Placate the bunny..
PS. That's not my nipple in the top right, it's a weird angle. Just sayin'
Placate the bunny

Step 3. Cover the bunny's eyes...
Cover bunny's eyes...

Step 4. CLIP!
Clip the bunny

Step 5. Calm the bunny....
Calm the bunny 

Step 6. Repeat steps 1-5 for the other 9 toe nails. 

I may have been bitten a few times.. but they were more like warning nips of love, rather than angry nips of hatred...

 

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2 comments on this post

  1. No one tells you that when you get a really cute pug puppy, you will probably have to start cleaning out their anal glands too. SIIICK

    ReplyDelete
  2. Naaaaasty!! Although I shouldn't get ahead of myself because I think that can happen with bunnies too...

    ReplyDelete

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