Poor babies

[Holly Paterniti]

As Easter started this morning, at the Paterniti household, we let Bear out as usual in the morning. As we all looked outside, we had noticed he was standing protectively over this mess of dead grass. So I looked a little closer and I see something moving..........we try to get Bear in, but he would not come in NO matter what. Joe ended up having to go outside to get him.

Went out to see what it was..............there were 6 newborn bunnies :( When I went to check on them, 4 out of the 6 were bleeding. I do not think Bear was trying to eat them.......I really think when he was digging up the nest to figure out what was moving. I think that as he was digging he was throwing them and then thought he would be able to play with them.

When we got back from breakfast........Joe decided to take care of the bunnies because as we all know the mommy will not be back..........when we went out.........they were all dead :( I feel so bad, but I did not know what else to do. Bear wanted to go out and we had to place the babies somewhere else or else Bear would try to play or maybe eat them.

I fell awful :( I was worried about Bear for a while thinking something was wrong with him because he has been laying around the past 2 hours, but Joe knocked it into me that this is what he usually does at this time. I worry WAY TOO much about Bear :)

[Adrianne Matzkin]

I don't know what to say other than I am so sorry that you, Bear, Joe and the rest of the family had to go through this.
Tell Joe that my DH, Mark, says the same thing - I worry way too much but I say never enough!

[HANNAH 8/2/07 & HONEY 7/2/08]

Sorry to hear about Bear and the bunnies, to many people don't worry enough about their pets or don't care what happens with them. Why we are pet moms or dads, and our parental guidance just kicks in. Once a nest is disturbed it is hard to raise babies without the mom and not loose them, so it may be a blessing they passed quickly and something else like a cat could have been there first and tried to hurt them, and Bear was just trying to save them. My first poodle loved bunnies and always tried to save them from cats. Hope the rest of your Easter was a happy one...Denise Hannah&Honey

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

We had a similar situation last spring. Jack found a rabbit's nest in the yard, and pulled all the grass & fur out of it. He didn't hurt the bunnies, but he poked them with his nose and made them squeal. I put all the stuff back in the best I could, and kept him away from it for another week or so, and started reading on-line about it. It said the mortality rate for baby bunnies is really high. I worried for days that the mother wouldn't come back, or that they had been exposed to the cold & would die, etc. But three of them actually did survive...for a little while. I saw them out in the yard the day they came out of the nest! But the next day, they were all back in the nest, dead. A lot of times, they die from just eating the wrong plants. I felt awful.
Jackdoodle was just being a dog, and so was Bear. It isn't their fault. I have decided that if a mother rabbit is dumb enough to make her nest in the middle of a yard where an 80# doodle hangs out, those babies probably wouldn't have made it anyway...they inherited some very stupid genes. :-) Hugs to you & Bear.

[Janie]

Karen, you had me laughing like crazy over you comment!

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

Is this where "dumb bunny" came from? Or how about dumb as dirt? ........

[Janie]

Sorry , for your upset...hope you fell better soon!

[Noble Vestal Labradoodles]

Dogs will be dogs~ you cant control that as much as you would like to.

[Kyoko]

Years back, my cat found a rabbit's nest, and brought the babies to the door one by one. But she scratched some of them in a process, they had some pretty bad open wound on them..... :( But three of them who weren't injuried, we kept them and bottle fed them with kitten fomula. I had to come home for lunch and feed these bunnies for so many days.
But they all dies eventually.... One got big enough to hop a little, but died..... Sad.....