I’m The Mean Mom Because I Didn’t Let My Kids Keep The Wild Bunny Our Cat Brought Home

shutterstock_116617438__1379941081_74.134.205.46My cat Godzilla is an asshole. I am also an asshole pet owner for letting him go outside, but   Godzilla is the type of cat impossible to keep inside. He sneaks out whenever the door is opened, and when you have kids, you know how hard it is to insure that your doors aren’t opened a hundred times a day. He stays in our yard, but it still makes me nervous, because he could hurt by a dog or something. I don’t worry so much about cars, because we live on a very quiet cul-de-sac, and he usually only ventures as far as our front sidewalk, where he rolls around in the sunshine and demands that delivery people pet him. He was a used cat when we got him (I am a big fan of previously owned animals), adopted from a shelter about seven years ago, and he doesn’t do much, except sleep and eat constantly and deliver us fabulous prizes he has caught from our backyard on our doorstep.

This weekend was no exception, because on Saturday it was my middle son’s birthday, and right before seven a.m. every child in my house demanded that I come to the window because ‘Zilla had caught a RACCOON or a BEAVER or a small DOG. This was obviously a birthday gift for my kid, and I hadn’t even had my coffee yet. Because these things only happen when I am the only parent around, my husband, of course, was out running.

My children were all upset and I told my teenager to go see what Godzilla had in his mouth. He ran back in with a dishtowel, went back outside, and presented me with a young bunny rabbit. Who was obviously injured and traumatized. I held the small, shivering creature against me, Goodzilla was locked in the basement, and I texted my husband in a panic who was just as clueless as I am in the care of hurt bunnies. My daughter, of course, immediatley named the bunny and started putting milk in one of her doll’s bottles. All in the span of maybe three minutes. I held the bunny, who seemed rather unhappy to be trapped in a towel, calmed my middle kid and told him we would still be celebrating, tried to google about what to do with a hurt bunny on my cell phone, and explained to my daughter that we did not have a cage to put him in. All before I had coffee.

I decided to investigate how hurt this bunny was, and gently placed him on my kitchen island, assuming he was injured enough where he wouldn’t move. WRONG. As he happily hopped off the island and scooted into my laundry room, lodging himself between the wall and my washing machine. You know, the area where stray socks go to die that you clean out every three months because moving the washer is such a hassle. My eldest rescued the bunny and after I carefully checked his injury, I realized he was pretty fine, and that the cat had just removed some tufts of fur off his hind legs.

I told my children we needed to put him back outside, and of course was deemed the MEAN mom because I decided we could not keep this poor rabbit as a pet. The kids finally agreed to put him in the woods behind my house and he hopped away. Godzilla, of course, is grounded from going outside.

I love animals, I would love to have all the animals, and I feel awful my cat chewed on this poor bunny. And I know my kids were disappointed that we did not keep him, but wild bunnies don’t do well when you try and domesticate them. I explained all this to the kids, and the only one who backed me up was my teenager, who was more concerned about whether he had time to hang out with a friend before the festivities. My daughter was totally bummed but I think she came to her senses, because when I was finally making my coffee she asked me if they sold bunny flavored cat food in pet stores.

(Photo: Ermolaev Alexander/shutterstock)

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