My Pets And Other Animals Contest Week 7 - A New Pet In The House

Hello everyone.

This is my first time to participate in this contest hosted by @maksina, which was referred to me by a friend. I just hope I was able to follow all the rules and regulations of this exciting contest, the link of which you can find here.

We have a new pet in the house. His name is Moses Maximilian and he is a RABBIT!

My kids named him and I have absolutely no clue as to why they named him as such. Max, as he is called for short, came to us in a very peculiar manner. He had a previous owner. This owner, for reasons we don't know, left Max in an empty lot behind our house. This lot is being developed as a subdivision but has been temporarily stopped due to legal problems. This is how the empty lot looks like.

Our kitchen faces this empty lot and one afternoon while my wife was doing the dishes she excitedly called me and told me she saw a rabbit crossed the street and hide in the grass. I looked but could not see anything. And besides, why would there be a rabbit there in the first place? So I said it must have been a cat and she reluctantly dropped the subject.

After about 3 weeks while I was jogging in the empty lot, I saw the rabbit and told my wife about it. The caretaker of the area told me that the rabbit was set loose by its owner there and left him to fend for his own. WHAT? What kind of pet owner would do such a thing? My wife became worried. She insisted we capture the rabbit and adopt him. What is he eating? Where does he get water? What if a snake bit it or worse, ate it? You see there were really some snakes seen around here, and it included a boa constrictor!

So the next day, with the help of our gardener helper we see off to catch the rabbit. Here are some photos of the chase and the eventual capture.

He kept on moving away and hiding under the tall sharp cogon grass.

We almost gave up. But finally we caught him and placed him inside the cage.

We did not know anything about taking care of rabbits. What does it eat? I noticed that while we were trying to catch him, he was nibbling on a leaf of a wild vine growing in the area. So that was one possible food we can give him. Google came to the rescue. He can eat cucumbers, bokchoy, morninga leaves, cabbage, apples, bananas and Chinese Cabbage. Fortunately we have five trees of Moringa Oleifera growing at the side of our house and the leaves are plentiful. Here he is with the Moringa leaves.

He definitely loves this stuff. Looking on warily in the photo below is Soap, one of 9 cats we have. He's checking Max out. He's probably wondering what kind of creature this thing is. First time he's seen one.

Boy this Max is one certified eating machine! Seems like everything we place in his cage is all gone before we know it. Could this be the reason why the previous owner gave him up? That he was expensive to maintain? Google said to feed him Rabbit pellets as this would give him a feeling of fullness and eat less. We ordered pellets. And of course, he loved it too.

Max has been with us maybe about 3 weeks and we realized he needs to exercise. He can't be caged continuously. It would be bad for him. So my daughter opened the cage and let him off and away he ran, happy that he could move about freely.

And finally, the ultimate joy of it all. Being able to pet him and make him feel secure with us. At first we were afraid he might bite is if we touched him. But he did not. He is such a sweet creature. He doesn't make a sound. He hardly moves and he always chews on something. I'm glad we were able to rescue him from the lot at the back. And it is such a joy just to sit back and watch him being himself.

And that's the story of our new addition to the family, the new kid in town. The cats are now used to him so they don't bother him anymore. Our two dogs, Patch and Bandit, still bark at her, so for now we lock up the two dogs inside their cages when Max is outside. I just can't help thinking about Max's former owner and why he did this to him. As my wife says, "Pets are almost always a reflection of their owners. Show me your pets and I'll tell you who you are."

And that's it for my participation in this contest. I hope you like it. Many thanks to @knopka145 who asked me to check this contest out. Keep safe everyone.

(All photos are mine and from our family album.)