Chapter 16 (Animals I’ve Known and Loved, cont.)
Heppy’s Bunny

The Easter after my brother Tucker brought his family home from Germany to live with us, Tucker bought a rabbit for Brigetta. We were still calling her Hepplechin, "Heppy for short"--a sweet German nickname for this little Heidi look-alike. It was a tame little salt and pepper grey bunny.

My mother didn’t want it to make a mess, so they trained Heppy’s bunny to use newspapers lain out in a corner over the linoleum. I was amazed. We no longer had only outdoor rabbits my mother had raised before, so I had no idea rabbits could be paper trained.

As the weather improved, the bunny was free to run in and out of the house. Once I saw it at the top of the hill on path to the woods, dashing down towards the house, up the steps to the back entry and running into the kitchen and to the newspapers…just in time! Otherwise, it would have relieved itself “outdoors.”

Shortly after, the bunny disappeared. I used to think it had died, but throughout my life, I’ve found that other than dogs, cats, and some fowl, pets are prone to go wild if not penned up.