Rescue group takes on unwanted Easter bunnies

GREENBRIER

Go ahead and buy a bunny for Easter – the kind where you can bite off the ears. Whether white chocolate, dark chocolate or milk chocolate is your fancy, as long as there’s no fur, you’ll get the green light from John Doub.

Yeah, real rabbits are cute and cuddly. But they’re more work than you think. Just ask Doub, founder of Virginia Rabbit Inc., a rescue for domestic rabbits.

“Don’t get me wrong – they can be the perfect pet,” Doub said. “But getting a bunny for a 5-year-old is ridiculous. A month after Easter, people start calling and emailing me. ...”

They don’t want their Easter bunny anymore.

That’s where Doub and his 10-year-old rescue come in.

At first glance, the surroundings look like the unlikeliest setting in the world for a rabbit rescue. Doub is president of Tidewater Mack Inc., a dealership for Mack trucks in an industrial area off Battlefield Boulevard facing I-64. Slip into Doub’s sizeable office and you might be there awhile before you catch a glimpse of Rosemary.

The 9-pound, gray lop-eared rabbit has the run of the place, delighting in the dried cranberries she hops over to eat from Doub’s hand. A cage behind his desk is filled with toys and fresh food.

Rosemary is what Doub calls a “Friday afternoon bunny.” Had he not retrieved her from a shelter, she would have been euthanized. He initially adopted her out, but when the owners asked him to care for her while on vacation, he found her in deplorable condition.

“She fell into the same rut a lot of them do; they’re a lot of work,” he said.

And a lot of money. Fixing a rabbit – necessary for their behavior and their health – is only one of the costs associated with owning your own bunny.

It is upwards of $300 to neuter a male and $500 to spay a female. An unspayed female rabbit will often die within two years from uterine cancer. Food and maintenance average $100 a month. Rabbits also require regular exercise – at least two hours per day out of the cage.

Rabbits are not short-term pets. They can live up to 10 years. They are also sensitive animals that are not wild about little kids unable to handle them correctly.

John’s 25-year-old daughter, Ashleigh Watts, ensures the 45 rabbits at Virginia Rabbit Inc., on the second floor of Doub’s business, receive star treatment. Caring for the rabbits is her full-time job.

“There are pellets and hay, refilling the water dishes every day,” she said. “Monday and Friday are litterbox cleaning days, and I vacuum out the cages all the time.”
Because she allows the rabbits out of cages to exercise, mopping repeatedly is a regular part of her routine.

The tear-jerker stories behind the rabbits are quite familiar to Watts. Many of them are labeled “Vacation neglect,” as folks will often drop their pet bunny off when leaving for vacation and never return to pick it up.

Black and white Reggie was dumped with a broken leg. Pepper was kept in a 10-gallon fish tank. Silver’s previous diet was hot dog buns, leading to the removal of all of her teeth. Pooh Bear is blind. Doub and Watts care for each as if it was their only.

Doub didn’t know a thing about rabbits when one turned up in the yard of his house in Hickory on Christmas morning. He put up signs seeking the owner of the obviously domesticated bunny. When no one responded, Bugs became a part of the family.

Two years and two days after that holiday, Doub got a call from his kids telling him the bunny was crying. “He passed away in my arms,” Doub said.

It wasn’t long before Doub hooked up with a rescue and had 10 more in his garage. The cause became dear to his heart, so he started his own organization.

“You cannot have a bad day when you come up here,” he said, stroking Max, an overexcited guy Doub has dubbed the “Richard Simmons of rabbits.”

Doub estimates he spends about $100,000 a year on the rescue, which adopts out about 100 rabbits annually at $50 each. What started with Bugs evolved into one of the largest rabbit-care organizations on the East Coast.

Easter has since become one of his least favorite times of the year because of all the unwanted rabbits he receives in May. So unless you’re ready to make a major commitment, he stressed, “Go to Walgreens and get the chocolate kind.”

Vicki L. Friedman, (757) 222-5218, vicki.friedman@pilotonline.com