Things Lucy did, the difference she made

Lucy passed over the Rainbow Bridge August 1, 2015

As explained in earlier posts, we recently lost Lucy. You can read about that at:
In memoriam: We lost Lucy today...
and
Lucy

What I have observed since her passing is how much she was an integral part of the trio of Bunya, Lucy & Ethel, what a difference she made. To us, too.

For a black and white bunny, Lucy added a lot of color. With off-white walls and a beige carpet, Ethel and Bunya can blend in, be almost camouflaged. Not Lucy. She stood out.

She was also "color commentary". Every bunny has her own personality; discovering its various aspects is part of the fun of a bun.

Lucy's personality was clear and she communicated her feelings to you. Her philosophy was to be front and center for treats... UNLESS you even gave a passing thought to picking her up. No need to even reach for her or actually decide to do it - just contemplating it would make her scarce. She could read your mind. Then she would only accept a treat if you were on one side of their pen's fence and she was on the other, so she knew you couldn't pick her up. If that wasn't possible, she just disappeared. When she wasn't pleased with something, maybe you would get thumped at... or maybe she would just give you her dreaded "stink eye".

Lucy protecting her Probios treat by
taking it behind their pen door to eat.

When the coveted evening Probios treat was being handed out, she would take her piece and run off to eat it alone so that no other bun would try to snatch hers if he or she finished before Lucy ate hers. Maybe she just let Bunya think he was the alpha bun. --->

It turns out that Lucy must have been a prodigious pooper, too. Now, I sometimes change the litter box based on habitual schedule rather than actual need.

Hand in hand with litter box habits is the consumption of mass quantities of hay and crumbles (or whatever you generically call your bunny chow - the compressed pellet food). Although we give them smaller amounts, Bunya has no serious competition for food now and I think he's eating most of it, possibly regaining some of the weight he lost. There is not as much activity at their homemade hay buffet either; Lucy would lean against it and eat so much of the treat hays that her head could disappear inside.

When we loaded their Einstein puzzle with treats and put it on the floor, the three bunnies used to race to open it. Lucy was Bunya's competition. She figured it out first and had the recall and brute strength to lift and toss the lids off and snag the treats. Now, Bunya and Ethel have to be encouraged to try it. And they only lift two of the three lids - it's like they leave a "missing bun" formation.


Since she's been gone, we continue to clean the bunny pen on our regular schedule. We take everything out, vacuum and put it all back. The end result is that their little wooden chew toys and bell balls get dumped in a pile. At some point thereafter, Lucy would bulldoze her way through the pile, picking up a toy in her mouth and tossing one to the left and then one to the right until she had carved a path through them all. Then, at some point, all the buns would play with the now separated toys.
Now, they just sit in a pile.
I finally went in and tossed them all over.

When Lucy was sick and we visited her for what turned out to be the last time at the vet, before the surgery that attempted to save her life, looking into her eyes was killing me inside. Usually wide open, bright blue, and reflecting tons of attitude, her eyes were heavily lidded and reflected nothing but pain.

I wonder how long bunnies remember. And mourn.
I wonder when it won't hurt so much.