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How our funny bunny is gnawing at our nerves

By Craig McIntosh (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-10-14 11:37

"Get her away from that!" is a phrase often heard in our home these days.

The "her" refers to a rabbit we accidentally adopted, while "that" includes anything even slightly chewable, such as newspapers, electrical wires, table legs, walls and my biscuits.

When she entered our lives after being released into the wilds of Beijing by someone who had received her as a unwelcome gift, Tuzi - it means "rabbit" in Chinese, chosen because it was only meant to be a temporary thing, and I didn't want my girlfriend to become too attached - has changed our lives.

And I wouldn't say it has been for the better.

We now have teeth and claw marks on nearly every surface in our home. I have had to throw away two Sony Playstation control pads and apply electrician's tape to almost every cable in the apartment. I can no longer go out onto our balcony because it has become territory she will defend to the death (my slippers pay the price).

I could go on, but I think you probably get the picture.

I thought we were being good Samaritans when we took her in and had visions of this blissful existence, with the rabbit nibbling contently from my hand and a smell-free home.

Oh, she eats out of my hand, but it's usually a sandwich or piece of fruit I actually intended to eat myself.

Also the digging is a problem. For some stupid reason, I presumed animals adapted to their environments. But, four months on, the little critter is still trying to dig her way into the apartment below.

I wouldn't mind, but she seems to be making progress under the couch.

Suffice to say, our energy and ideas about how to stop her chewing everything she sees were exhausted all too quickly and, once again, we turned for help from that ultimate source of knowledge - the Internet.

Once again, it gave us a disturbing insight into the minds of some scary people.

"My rabbit is chewing everything. How can I make her stop?" wrote one unlucky pet owner in a similar position to ours. "Pull out her teeth" was unfortunately the first response the post, quickly followed by, "Put a cork on her teeth".

One of the more constructive posts, however, spoke of a liquid that only rabbits can smell and, if sprayed on to surfaces, would keep Tuzi at bay. It only cost 35 yuan on Taobao.com, so we went for it.

Once it arrived in the post, we sprayed everything but our eyeballs. The result? It was as if we had put the icing on the cake. She went a-nibbling like there was no tomorrow and even seemed to be more attracted to the areas we had "double sprayed", such as skirting board and wires.

"I can't understand why it didn't work," replied the salesman when we e-mailed to complain, no doubt with a huge smirk on his face.

Another post on "Ask Baidu.com" suggested the problem could be down to the rabbit having "too much energy" and owners should try to give them as much exercise as possible.

What else could we do? We bought a rabbit leash and joined the legion of dog walkers on the streets of Beijing.

We would not have attracted more stares if we had gone out naked. I expected laughing, what we were actually met with was abject horror. Dog walkers crossed busy roads to avoid us, and I could see people were weighing up whether or not to call the police to deal with this crazy pair and their rabbit on a day-glow leash.

They say good cannot exist without evil, but should this good Samaritan finally give Tuzi a starring role in a REAL hotpot? E-mail your thoughts.