I have a rabbit named Padfoot. He loves to eat.

 

My husband and I rescued Padfoot from a local humane society almost 3 years ago. Since then, Padfoot has made his boundaries perfectly clear. Padfoot is not a lap bunny. He will not allow us to pick him up. He won’t nuzzle our noses or jump on the couch and watch TV with us. Padfoot is more likely to kick the glasses off my face in an attempt to run away from the nail clippers. And although he’s grown kind enough to allow us to pet him while he’s sitting in his cage (as long as we don’t make any sudden movements toward grabbing him), Padfoot will only show us affection on one occasion: feeding time.

 

At any other time of day, one might find Padfoot lying on his back or sitting crouched like a hen with his eyes half closed. At morning feeding time, however, Padfoot springs to life, stands up on his hind legs, and eagerly awaits the filling of his food dish. He graciously allows me to remove the empty dish from his sights, sometimes pawing my hand as if to remind me, “We’ve got a deal here, right? You can take that, but you will put more food in it and give it right back.” As I return Padfoot’s food dish, full of yummy rabbit pellets, he dives his nose in and gets to work immediately, letting me pet his head and scratch behind his ears while he dines.

 

While Padfoot’s absence of affection for anything but food might seem like perfectly normal rabbit behavior, it isn’t. I grew up loving and caring for many pet rabbits, but none behaved like Padfoot. Most of my rabbits liked being held, loved attention, and rationed their food so meticulously that you could leave them with two full dishes for a weekend, and they’d eat at an appropriate pace. Bunnies are smart animals. And Padfoot is too; but he’s also really hungry.

 

I blame Padfoot’s early days. Before we rescued him, Padfoot was removed from a home by law enforcement because his owner had too many animals and was neglecting them. I hate to imagine what my poor bunny went through and how little attention and food he received.  Naturally, Padfoot now quickly consumes all the food he is given because he once didn’t know when his next meal would arrive.

 

Kauffman4 The other problem is that I’m a sucker. I look at Padfoot’s past and cry about how my sweetly stubborn bunny was treated. So I feed the dude. I give him lettuce at night, sometimes carrots, sometimes Timothy hay. Padfoot devours them all. He’s also developed favorites. Padfoot particularly enjoys organic and local lettuce. If I give him iceberg lettuce, he occasionally turns up his nose in disgust to communicate, “Really, fools? I should debase myself for such petty roughage?” This disgust only lasts a moment, and he’ll eat the iceberg as soon as I walk away.

 

Out of curiosity, I once offered Padfoot a grape. I put it in his food dish and he looked at me, perplexed. To help him get the scent of the grape, I cut off the skin and put the grape back in his dish. With vigor, he greedily consumed this new treasure. I don’t give him grapes that often though. I love Padfoot, but I’m not about to peel the skins off individual grapes for my hoity-toit bunny.

 

Padfoot’s life hasn’t always been happy. I hope he’s happy now, even if he doesn’t often show it. But I know, with total confidence, that Padfoot is happy when he eats. And while other bunnies eat for sustenance alone, I can tell that

Padfoot relishes in feeding. It gives him joy. That makes me pretty happy.