Rabbits aaaah

Here are some rabbits that I saw today in our local pet shop. I think they were practising their audition for the Cute Overload website. Let us hope that the one peering through the small hole doesn't suffer from claustrophobia.

Lots of people seem to keep rabbits indoors in a pen these days, and then let them out to hop round the house, depositing little round pellets everywhere. I think that's a bit strange: I kept a lot of rabbits as a child and many breeds don't really have the fluffy personalities to go with their looks. They will bite quite hard and have really rather big teeth. They will also box with their front legs.

The best breed for keeping indoors, if you must, would seem to be the Netherland Dwarf, which is very small: though even they can be "highly strung" according to the website. The reason Netherland Dwarfs are so popular is this: a highly-skilled bunch of Research Rabbits spent years researching Human Beings and found out that, as with any kind of animal, you get a much better deal if you look as much like a human baby as possible. Hence these rabbits decided to evolve to have roundish bodies, short ears and huge eyes. They were next seen in a pet shop shouting "Nobody loves you and we don't care!" at a tank full of baby snakes.

The rabbits in the picture above are going to grow big with long ears and hence will look like rabbits and not like cuddly toys. Only their retail price of £24.99 each will save them from forming part of a delicious pie.