I must confess from the absolute getgo that rabbit behavior is the most satisfying discovery that I have made in this life. For example, I just witnessed a fascinating exchange between a dwarf named 'Sox; and the whole female herd (Tabitha (matriarch) Vincent (senior doe), Munchie (adolescent doe), not to mention Timber's six kittens who I have not yet named. My idea was to find out if Sox could socialize with these Lops (other species---no, not species, but variety). The answer became clear almost at once: 'definitely not!'The Lops were up for it, but poor little Sox went ballistic. Sure, I wanted to jump in there and interpret what was going on: like, "...she ('Sox') feels superior to the other rabbits, she has lived alone for a long time, and let's not forget she had just lost the love of her life, Mister Magnus (in photo aboove:Sox, black and Mr. Magnus, white)."
Every word of it---truth. Every word of it---fiction. My way of observing rabbits is to stay with the pure behavioral observations as much as possible without me throwing in all of the human elements and then if I catch myself mythifying or even attempting to "understand" the rabbit behavior I back off, or try to stop the thought right there at its root.
Call it a phenomenology of the rabbit, if you will, on the one hand; and on the other it is a fictive novel. At the same time it is a kind of window through which I am able to 'interpret' my own existence.
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