Catherine Howard

Have not yet blogged that in February, and following Beau’s sad death in December, we (well, Ruth) adopted another female rabbit as a companion for Harley – a young, pretty grey female who had come into the rescue centre with one or more siblings (I forget how many). As they often do during bondings, Reading Rabbit Rescue posted a video on their Facebook page of her and Harley in the ‘bunny moon suite’ during their stay. RRR hadn’t published photos of any of Harley’s bondings since his none-too-successful bonding with Lexie, so they were evidently feeling more confident about this one.

Sandra, almost in the same breath, praised Harley’s longevity, attributing it substantially to his being a house bunny, given his respiratory problems, and commiserated with us over our bad luck with our females.

The new bunny was referred to as ‘Greybun’ during her time at RRR and initially by us; on pressing by Sandra, we chose ‘Pippa’ as being a cute sort of name, so this was duly entered on her card. However, between ourselves we had taken to referring to her, wittily, as ‘Catherine Howard’, given that she is Harley’s fifth female companion. The nickname has inevitably stuck, though I’ve at least once exclaimed loudly in public something along the lines of “Catherine Howard let me stroke her this morning!” which could raise eyebrows. There are advantages to more traditional pet names such as Snowy, Fluffykins etc.

CH is the youngest bunny we’ve yet adopted, as she only turned one in April. As Harley is now around nine, we’re trying not to feel guilty over having separated her from her sibling(s) to come and live with an old man. She and Harley seem to be working well together, though perhaps inevitably she is livelier than he is. Here they are, with Harley in the typically subservient pose he adopts with females, presumably in the hope that they will accidentally groom his head while reaching to lick their own foot.

Pics of our five females below:

Lola	Lexie
Willow	Beau (with Harley)

Catherine Howard

In an idle moment we had a go at pairing the females up with one each of Henry VIII’s wives. Lola, our first female, would fit with Catherine of Aragon, we decided, given that she was with Harley for the longest - four years until her death in 2013. Spirited, wilful, furniture-loving Willow we decided would be Anne Boleyn; shy, short-lived Beau (in terms of her time with us – she was actually around five when she died) would be Jane Seymour, leaving thumping great bruiser Lexie to be Anne of Cleves. Obviously, we’re hoping not to get a Catherine Parr any time soon.