Shortstack

Finally, after much hunting, stress, and difficulty, I found him. The perfect, loveliest rabbit I could have hoped for. As decided by both those of you who voted (thanks and stuff) and me (I would have probably picked it anyway) my new bun is named Shortstack. This is his face:

Shortstack

Getting to this lovely, perfect bun was a saga, and a hard one. First we went to Champaign, where the Champaign County Humane Society is. Nice people, great facility, sweet animals. I met another looker there by the name of Mackenzie/aka the bun that got away. This is her:

Not Shorstack

She is (was?) a Netherland Dwarf, as is Shortstack. She, however, got away. Some little girl (the staff said so) adopted her out from under us at the last minute. If I ever meet this 'little girl' character I'm not gonna lie, I'll probably beat her up. It can't be hard.
Next we went far up north to Algonquin, IL, A whopping four hours and change away, to No Splitting Hairs. NSH is a great shelter with some really good people helping out there, but all of their rabbits were HUGE, like 2-4 Houdinis in size. Houdini came along for the trip, and was not happy to meet rabbits several times her size. We left Algonquin empty handed, which was disappointing, given the travel and expense. We tried to make a last minute craigslist rush while we were still up north, but unsurprisingly a lot of the people selling rabbits on their were super shady (although one of them was really nice).
Finally, we found a post from a town called Lonedell in Missouri, about an hour south of St. Louis. That was how Shortstack came about, and after a three hour trip there and an identically long one back, we had our second rabbit. Houdini was very excited

Courtney's work

Shortstack, however, is very different from Houdini, and demonstrates just how varied rabbits can be. Where Houdini is oblivious to threats (aggressive cats, shoe clad feet, etc), gregarious, and adventurous Shortstack is cautious to a fault and protective of his territory. On his first night home he barely moved at all, but instead hunkered down against the floor, looking like an eared eggplant. He even went and tucked himself in behind my Dad's neck as a hiding place (cuteshit). Houdini was excited as ever, and scared the living shit out of the newcomer, who eventually started chasing her out of his little 'safe zones' that he'd become comfortable enough to move around.
Over the last few days, however, he's warmed up significantly, recovering from the trauma of being uprooted. He's currently hopping and running around the bed that I'm in. He and Houdini are still not best friends by any means, but we're starting to see them warm up to each other. It's clear they want to be friends, they're both quite curious about each other, but also both afraid of having their territory invaded.

Work in progress

He's now comfortable enough to roam around, sniff Courtney and I, and do little happy hops around his play spaces. Sometimes he even lets us pet him, something that's become increasingly common over the last couple days.

Hiding: Shortstack's 2nd favorite activity behind exploring.

We've got a ways to go, he's still just a little 8-week old baby and has much to learn, but in a month or two he'll be every bit the loving, playful bunny we've come to know in Houdini.