What's New at the House Rabbit Society
October 2007

** Lowcountry House Rabbit Society President Receives Jefferson Award

Jenni Beard, President of the Lowcountry House Rabbit Society, has
received the Jefferson Award from the Charleston, SC Post and
Courier for her work with the House Rabbit Society. For the full
story, see "Rabbit Rescuer Steps in When Pets Lose Favor"
(http://www.charleston.net/news/2007/sep/30/rabbit_rescuer_steps_when
_pets_lose_favo17657/).

** PetSmart Begins Rabbit Sales

In July, PetSmart began selling dwarf rabbits in its stores. To see
what you can do about this issue, visit http://www.rabbit.org to
read our press release, some of the national press the issue has
received, and more. We have been told that PetSmart is now going to
be making a decision as to whether or not to continue rabbit sales,
so your calls and emails are still very much needed!

** Emergency Rescue Fund Grant

We now have an emergency rescue grant fund that is used to help
other shelters and rescue groups when they end up with large numbers
of rabbits in an emergency situation. If you'd like to help, please
visit http://www.rabbit.org.

** Rabbits in the News

Scientists Hope Hef Bunny Numbers Jump
http://www.newsvine.com/_news/2007/05/20/729529-scientists-hope-hef-
bunny-numbers-jump
A cat trapping program in the Florida Keys protects endangered marsh
rabbits.

Bunny lovers put off by COA's rabbit recipes
http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/front/archives/2007/05/27/2003362626
Rabbit SOS, Taiwan's first rabbit rescue organization, protests the
country's Council of Agriculture's promotion of rabbits as food.

** Rabbit Links
Lolrabbit
http://icanhascheezburger.com/category/lolrabbit/
Extra cute pictures of rabbits with captions. Based on the lolcat
phenomenon. You can generate your own at
http://www.thecheezburgerfactory.com/.

Talking rabbit on America's Got Talent promotes rabbit adoption
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2h8CGTSNsY

Skippy Ala King and his human Bruce competed this summer on
America's Got Talent. You can also see Skippy at the Aspen Comedy
Festival (http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?
fuseaction=vids.individual&VideoID=9507649).

Disapproving Rabbits
http://www.birdchick.com/adventures/rabbit/
Pictures of rabbits disapproving of all sorts of things. There's
also a blog (http://www.disapprovingrabbits.com/) and a book
(publication date: October 16).

** Chapter Updates


* Tampa Bay HRS

The Tampa Bay House Rabbit Society recently ran a toy drive to
benefit the rabbits of the Tampa Bay SPCA.

The SPCA has long been a model for adoption, education, behavior-
training and care for the animals with one exception - the rabbits
were kept outdoors. Plans were in place to enclose the existing
rabbit hutches when the SPCA made the decision to give the rabbits a
space indoors. Brand new cages were purchased and rabbits happily
moved into their new digs.

To celebrate the move, TBHRS partnered with Busy Bunny to buy some
new chew toys to keep the bunnies occupied until they find their
forever home. Best of all, since moving indoors, the rabbits are
getting more visits from prospective adopters.

* Maryland/DC/Northern Virginia HRS

The MD/DC/NoVA Chapter represented HRS by staffing booths at two
conferences held in the Washington, D.C. area. The first at the end
of July was Taking Action for Animals, a conference sponsored by
several animal protection organizations including HSUS, AWI, PCRM,
WSPA (http://www.takingactionforanimals.com/). We helped educate
people about the many issues of rabbit welfare including Petsmart's
recent decision to sell baby rabbits.

The second was the American Humane Association's annual conference
for animal welfare and protection professionals at the end of
September (http://www.americanhumane.org/site/PageServer?
pagename=ev_professionals_pa_conference). We provided information
about meeting the needs of rabbits while in a shelter environment
and ideas for finding good adoptive homes. It was encouraging to
hear so many positive comments about HRS and the good relationships
many shelters enjoy with our local chapters around the country.

* Rabbit Rescue & Rehab (New York City HRS)

New York City HRS will hold its 13th Annual Rabbit Care Conference
on Sunday, October 21 at the Radisson Hotel in New Rochelle, NY.
Further details available from http://rabbitcare.org/conference.html.

* Sweet Binks Rabbit Rescue (Rhode Island HRS)

On October 13th, Sweet Binks will be conducting a Rabbit Education
Seminar at the RISPCA in East Providence from 12 pm to 3 pm. Sweet
Binks offers these mini-seminars twice a year, free to the public.
Topics discussed are basic health, diet, care, litter box training,
spay/neutering, grooming and other subjects.

On August 4th, Sweet Binks held our 4th Bun-efit Fundraiser at VASA
Park in Foster. So many wonderful raffle items were donated for our
big raffle and we raised just shy of $4000.00 for our shelter. We
had vendors booths, tarot card readings and lots of great bunny
merchandise. It was another hot and successful Bun-efit and we
thank all our volunteers and friends for their hard work and for
coming out and supporting Sweet Binks!

* Wisconsin HRS

On October 6, the Wisconsin House Rabbit Society celebrated 15 years
of rabbit rescue. Marinell and Bob Harriman joined founders Julie
Smith and Carolyn Long, current Chapter Manager George Flentke, and
a gathering of many members for a banquet and fund-raiser in
Madison. Nearly 550 rabbits have been directly admitted into the
WHRS fostering program since its founding in 1992. Hundreds of other
rabbits have been supported by our volunteer-run socialization
programs at many Wisconsin shelters. Other projects have included
distribution of the HRS Handbook to public libraries across the
state, and the donation of professional rabbit cages for shelters
with high rabbit intakes. We are grateful to the loyal support of
our many members and volunteers; thanks to their efforts many
rabbits have been saved and provided with a high quality of life. We
look forward to another fifteen years plus!

WHRS has also been busy assisting with several large scale rabbit
rescues. These include the 180 rabbit confiscation at South Suburban
Humane Society, the displacement of farmed rabbits in western
Wisconsin after the heavy flooding of late August, and assisting
Indiana HRS with the pending influx of dutch rabbits from the
Louisville confiscation. This is all on top of the 38 rabbit
confiscation in Dane County last summer. It has been a privilege to
work with Chicago and Indiana HRS in helping these needy rabbits.

* St. Louis HRS

MO HRS in St. Louis celebrated adopting its 1000th bunny in
September! Over 60 members attended the monthly meeting which was
mostly a party with quite a few adopted bunnies in attendance as
well. :) One additional accomplishment that was part of this was
the dedication of four special volunteers who took total charge of
a "dump" of 42 bunnies on a local shelter which had no resources for
more than 2 or 3 rabbits. MO HRS provided the spays/neuters,
housing, health care, supplies, and food, but it was these four
volunteers who handled the daily cleaning, feeding, vet runs, people
education, and adoption of these bunnies. Thanks to Pat Daly,
Bobbie Shewmaker, Thelma Miller, and Maggie Perez for the many hours
spent at this shelter and an additional thanks to Emily Prince who
also spent many hours helping these bunnies. Of
course, other surrendered bunnies didn't stop coming in, but because
of the tireless efforts of these volunteers, we have placed 57
bunnies from this shelter since it all started last April. Most
have been adopted, but the few remaining have been able to be
absorbed into MO HRS foster care until they, too, can find their
forever home.

MO HRS also has their annual RABBIT RESCUE CALENDAR available for
2008 at $15. It can be ordered by going to
http://www.mohrs.petfinder.org for information or by ordering from
those local chapters or national HRS which carry it. All proceeds
go directly towards rescuing abandoned domestic rabbits from
whichever organization it's ordered. The front and back cover can
be seen on our website.

MO HRS in St. is also having its annual Holiday Animal Boutique on
Nov. 4 at the Humane Society of Missouri from 11am to 4pm with
prizes, jewelry, gifts for pets and pet people, photos with Santa,
holiday or season photos, and bunny supplies. Our website has full
information or call 314-995-1457 for additional information.

Finally, the St. Louis side of MO HRS was happy to help again with
the annual Central Veterinary Convention in Kansas City during
September. As always, the K.C. crew, chaired each year on this
project by Jennifer Habernal, put together a fabulous booth complete
with CDs full of information to give to attending veterinarians and
vet techs. In spite of a full time job and a ton of foster bunnies,
Jenn always does an incredible job of pulling off this huge event
and impressing both vets and the CVC with her professionalism.


* AAE-Conigli (HRS Italy)

AAE-Conigli, HRS Italian Chapter, will be holding a conference on
rabbit health and rabbit care in Rome on September 20, 2007. For our
European members and friends, the Information Is as follows:

Conigliomania - Rabbit festival
Villa Celimontana
Via della Navicella 12, Roma, Italy
October 21 2007

We will have a 13.15 Vegetarian lunch at 13:15 (1:15pm) and at 14:30
(2:30pm), the main Rabbits and caretakers meeting will be held. To
find out more, please visit http://www.aaeconigli.it/ .

* Iowa educator

We've been busy in Iowa, taking in dump calls, handling phone calls
and emails about rabbit care and health issues, and assisting a
graduate student at the University of Iowa who was concerned about
conditions at an Iowa-City area shelter.

** Become a Member of House Rabbit Society or Renew Your Membership

If you are not a member of House Rabbit Society, please take this
opportunity to join us. A yearly tax-deductible membership costs
only $18, or $25 for international memberships. If you already are a
member, thank you, and please remember to renew. All members receive
the Society's newsletter, House Rabbit Journal, edited by House
Rabbit Society founder and author of The House Rabbit Handbook,
Marinell Harriman. Please go to http://rabbit.org/hrs-
info/joining.html.

NOTE: The latest Issue of House Rabbit Journal has gone to print and
Is going out this month! So If you're not sure If your membership or
address Is current, be sure to check In with us at
membership@... to make sure you will receive the latest Issue!

Laura Barnes
HRS E-Newsletter Editor and HRS Educator
laura@...