Wednesday, August 24, 2016

Sound effects

Rabbits are smart, they're big communicators.  Just not with a lot of noise.  They do make some sounds, but as prey animals they mostly don't want to draw attention to themselves.  However, their ecological niche makes them exceptionally good listeners.

Just as dogs can learn through repetition that sounds (and by extension words) have meaning, rabbits will develop their own 'vocabulary' as it were.  However, they're more like cats when it comes to responding.  Oh they know full well that "Not for bunnies!" means the human is going to make them stop whatever they're doing.  They'll usually stop - and give you the side-eye* to see if you're actually coming over to stop them.  When you do they'll either bound away to play with something else, or hunker down for head rubs.  Go back to your book however, and they know you didn't really mean business so they're free to continue trying to pull everything out of the recycling bin.

As a human it's easy to forget how much noise mundane activities can make.  You might not be aware for example, that Oxbow multivitamins and Tums have a similar density - and therefore make a similar sound when rattled around in their plastic bottles.

When you find yourself at the medicine cabinet with a very eager rabbit standing on it's back feet, paws on your shin - you'll be very glad you have emergency raisin stashes around the house.



* Actually with nearly 360 degrees of vision they're always giving everyone 'side-eye'.

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