BABY GIRL
by Steve Guida
Baby Girl is a little tan and white lop mix with severe head tilt. Her head tilts over to the right nearly ninety degrees. I remember the first time I saw Baby Girl. It was just a couple of days after Christmas in 2001. She was in a cage with soft cushioning on the bottom and padded baby bumpers on the inside. This was to keep her from injuring herself when she lost her balance and started spinning. Seeing this tiny little bunny girl with her twisted body and her eye apprehensively looking up at me, I was immediately captivated by her. Somehow I knew she just could not spend the rest of her life in a padded cage, but inside I wondered just what kind of life would she have with her disability.
I can't remember the exact day that I took her out of her cage for the first time to see how she would do on her own in the open room. But she very excitedly started moving around and after a few false starts, did very well on her own. Each time I let her out of the cage she got better and better, more confident in her movements and less likely all the time to fall over. Even when she did lose her balance, she quickly righted herself and went on doing what she was doing, as if absolutely nothing happened. Eventually her padded cage moved out to the garage and Baby Girl took up residence in a regular cage just like all the other rabbits.
Baby Girl continues to amaze me to this day with her unstoppable determination to live as normally as possible. She spends the majority of the day having free run in the house with her companion bunny, Cisco. She has always been nothing but active, playful and full of zest for life. Keenly aware of everything going on around her, she has that sixth sense bunnies have when it comes to treats and is always front and center whenever the carrot pieces are passed out. She can also sense when it's time to get her eyes cleaned and will try to get away by zig-zagging as fast as she can back to her cage. After I clean her eyes and put ointment in them and release her she will always do her happy freedom dance and give me a sassy toss of her ears, thinking that she outsmarted that dim-witted human with the icky eye medication once again.
In a lot of cases with special needs rabbits, even though their disability is permanent and untreatable they somehow manage to move past their physical problems and go from merely surviving to thriving. At those times their true rabbit nature shows through and you get to see the happy, fun-loving and intelligent creatures they truly are. In all ways Baby Girl has surpassed any expectations I initially had for her quality of life. She has adamantly refused to act in any way like a disabled bunny. I really believe she considers herself to be completely normal, and it's the rest of the world that's a little bit off-center. She has taught me that no matter what life has dealt to you, you need to accept it and make the most of it, because even in the most challenging and difficult of situations there is still good to be found, and life is a gift meant to be lived to the fullest and enjoyed every day.
Baby Girl has always been and continues to be a great blessing in my life and I will always thank Brambley Hedge for the opportunity and privilege of being her foster dad.
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