Give a rabbit a chance

Everyone gets excited about the Easter bunny this time of year, but the rabbit’s association with the holiday can also be bad news, as bunnies glimmer of fame gets them gifted into homes that aren’t prepared for them.

It’s not an unusual thing for shelters to be flooded with bunnies after the holiday fun is over. So considering there may be a few more furry friends hitting local shelters soon, a tech friend of ours is making a case for why you ought to consider taking in a little bunny friend.

Brian Heater, a Senior Associate Editor at Engadget, says he was introduced to rabbit ownership after realizing it would be cruel to keep a dog in his apartment. His cat allergy also eliminated that possibility, so a rabbit owner he became.

Making his case for rabbit ownership on KIRO Radio’s Andrew Walsh Show, Brian first points out rabbits can be potty trained.

“A lot of people don’t know that. You put out a litter box and they kind of teach themselves how to do it.”

Heater says they’re very good apartment pets, quick to warm up to people, and like cats and dogs can make for wonderful internet fodder.

“Internet rabbit people are every bit as crazy as internet cat people, or internet dog people, or internet sloth people, internet sneezing panda people.”

There’s also one more thing that rabbits do that none of these other house pets do: the binky.

“The binky is this thing that they do, it’s pretty much the greatest thing in the world,” says Brian. “When they’re really happy they do this thing where they kind of skirt in the air and do this little twist jump in a way that the first couple times you think there might be something wrong with them. You think perhaps they’ve had a stroke in midair. It turns out they’re really bad at hiding their emotions.”

The binky, Brian explains, is like the rabbit’s expression of pure joy. The binky seems to also bring out a similar joy in its observers. Many results turn up in a YouTube search. Enjoy witnessing the binky below, and if you’re thinking of taking in a cute little bunny, Brian reminds you to check the shelter first.

Read Brian’s full case for the bunny on Boing Boing.