But Wait! There's More!

On with the gratuitous pet pics. Dog and cat videos are a common sight in the blog world, but certain Texas bloggers have reminded me that the pet world doesn't end with the canine/feline connection. After viewing her photographic tributes to chickens, lizards, and rabbits, I've realized I have committed an egregious faux paw.

All of you are well acquainted with the trials, tribulations and medical emergencies of my two Labradogs, Batman & Mason. It occurs to me, however, that you may be living in blissful ignorance of our other pet, who actually predates the boys. I should be ashamed. Even my blogger label is "dogs", not "pets".

This creature was presented to the Bohemian on her 12th birthday, straight from the tiny Hungarian pet store on the corner. The process to bring him to the States three years later was harrowing, expensive, and nearly resulted in the term "going postal" making it into the Hungarian lexicon. Yes, I would've been the crazy foreigner screaming in toddler-level Hungarian from a prison cell, "He's not a rodent! Sign the goddamn papers!"

Teen Demon's guinea pigs, Cheeky & Friend, were sadly not authorized to travel, as they bore the unfortunate cross of being officially classified as rodents. They had to stay in Hungary with one of her friends. A couple of years later, Teen Demon received this succinct text message from her friend: "Csiki meghalt." (Cheeky died.) Facts are facts, I guess.

Our other pet was luckier. I discovered he was, in fact, a lagomorph, not a rodent. Convincing the Hungarian authorities of this fact was not easy, but we prevailed. Finding an airline that would accept him was another hurdle. Many American dollars, reams of paper, and extra flight miles later, he became a legal immigrant, although he was not permitted to ride in the cabin with the rest of the family. I still don't understand the reasoning that allows yappy chihauhaus and yowling cats in the cabin, but bans a silent pet. It's not like he's a snake, for pet's sake, he's a friggin' mammal. The airlines clearly have specieist policies in place. Nevertheless, he arrived at Sea-Tac, only to be left randomly in the airport by their crack team of employees. When he never showed up at baggage claim, we found his little carrier, balanced on a post out in the public area, with some little kid contemplating whether to open the door and play with him.



That was 4 years ago, and he's recovered nicely. Without further ado, I present Cadbury, the Hungarian lagomorph.

So Cadbury just turned 8 and seems to be going strong. When the weather warms up, we'll take the top part of his cage, or maybe dig out the harness he hates, and take him out in the yard. We can't let him loose in this yard, because there are gaps under our weak old fence which holds back the monsters my neighbor refers to as "dogs". (I keep meaning to post about that whole situation.) He loves dandelions and clover. I wish he could keep the lawn down enough that I wouldn't have to mow grass, but I guess for that I'd need a goat, which brings me back to that whole goat thing from my high school farm daze that I also keep meaning to blog about.

Redneck Mother has stated that some folks classify pet-heavy blogs as being "unprofessional". Whatever. The animalia on her blog does not take away from her scathing political commentary, her skills in raising two progressive kick-ass kids in the midst of a Republican stronghold, or the fact that she's rocking Texas as a fellow Obama delegate. Bring on the pets, I say. In that vein, I took a video of Cadbury as well, because I know you are all about the pet videos. It's kind of dark, but you can see him getting his broccoli fix.

While packing up to leave Hungary, my landlords couldn't believe we were going to all that trouble and expense to take a rabbit back with us. Laci, the husband, kept joking about how we could leave him there and he'd have Mari whip up a Cadbury pie. They found this hilarious, and laughed about it for days. We thought they were just poking fun at our vegetarian ways, which Laci always saw as some sort of illness. Turns out that all this time, they thought the name Cadbury was actually Cadberry, and that a cadberry was the English name for some type of American berry not native to Hungary -- you know, blueberry, strawberry, gooseberry, cadberry. A "Cadberry pie" was actually a witty double entendre that we just didn't get. They, of course, had no idea who the Cadbury bunny is. Yeah. That's my funny pet story for the day.

So that's our rabbit. I'm not blogging about Teen Demon's fish.