Bunnies and the Bandit

New neighbours moved in with their three cats: KeeKee, a tortie my OH has seen sat by their back door, in the house, a huge fluffy black cat whose name I've forgotten and a smokey-grey cat, looks normal sized so probably teenytiny uner all his massive fluffiness, called Bandit. Bandit is most interested in the bunnies: black-fluffy-cat was interested in them in the sense they were there and the place was new, but not interested enough to be completely obsessed with them. Bunnies weren't so keen: we wondered why Lopsy was hiding in the tunnel for hours for the first few days.

After some forum advice I put a tarp around the run. Lopsy wasn't impressed by that, spending hours (well, it felt like hours) sat on the steps and Bandit just wandered all over the top of the run anyway, and they couldn't see him coming.







I also boarded off the hutch with a removable panel (under Aboleth's supervision) and put loads of hidey places in the house:





But after Bandit's escapades on the top of the run, I dug through the garden waste (uncollected in Winter and full of chewed sticks) and pulled out some of the chunky ones and loads to put around the top and sides. Bunnies were very interested in what I was doing (let's face it, I was basically playing with their food :roll and it looked like this:



Bandit was REALLY confused and sat on the brick pile for ages, to-ing and fro-in g and eventually jumped down to the ground, avoiding the run. When we left to go to work, we saw through the gate that Bandit was curiously poking his nose at the hutch and one of the bunnies moved towards him, so he ran off. The bunnies, though, are much more relaxed with him. He's still super curious though.

It also seems he likes to play with all furry things: he was trying to play with Big Fluffy Black Cat who escaped up our oak tree. We think he's too old for play: he feels older. He and Bandit are quite friendly; well, Bandit was until I had to hiss at him for annoying the bunnies! Big Fluff is lovely though, and the bunnies are unconcerned by him

The best bit was Sunday: Lopsy was in the bottom of the hutch spectating while Bandit and Aboleth were having a stare off in the run. They nosed each other through the bars, which was nice, but then Bandit tried to play with Aboleth, who backed off rather sharpish (and I nearly shot outside but didn't because she didn't seem too concerned: we were watching from the lounge), then continued to stare at him until he backed off and went away! She was fine, of course, as was Lopsy, and she got some treats (FibaFirsts ;P) for out-staring a cat with half the number of eyes of said cat ;D Bandit was just creeping over the wall when I went outside so I did a bit of a Loser sign at him (seems only fair, I've done it to the bunnies often enough!) and he slouched off.

Bunnies seem able to sort out their own troubles: we were worried about them but they got over it in a few days with no real problems, for which I'm very thankful! Neighbour was worried about them too so that's nice

I'm glad the buns are standing their ground. All my neighbours have cats which used to like visiting our garden... we've since got a cat scarer that the girls will go nudge to activate when they see a cat near the fence

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Hogeeze, this reminds me of when Mimzy was an outdoors bunny and had a shed and small run in our back yard in Alaska. It was only for his first summer with us as I advocated for him to be indoors permanently by snowfall.
We also had our semiferal kitty outside then, and she'd often be skulking about in the yard looking for someone to pester. (I've already posted about how the ravens knew her well.) Mimzy was out doing binkies in his run (those were magnificent to see and I miss them ) and Kitty got curious. Suddenly Mimzy tilted his head to give her a staredown and she boldly walked up to the fencing, like a shot Mimzy came charging towards her and then flipped his hind feet at the fence, giving it a hearty slap so that it bowed up in her face and she was gone in a flash. When Mimzy landed I could sense a definite air of self-satisfaction. I praised him for being such a brave boy and gave Kitty a good talking to for being an eejit. :lol:

Fiver did something much the same one day when Griff thought he might play with Fiver's funny ball toy. He zoomed out of his run and came at Griff full on and chased him off the bed. Griff never messed with that toy again! :lol: In fact he won't go near the rabs in general. At least he learned his lesson. :roll: Kitty still thinks she can bother them and it hacks me off no end.

Lovely story, keletkezes. Thank you for the smile and the memory bump. xxxx

We have loads of neighbours with cats. We've got one of those huge water pistols "Super Soaker" then we give them the occasional squirt. They tend to go after the wild birds in the garden. Years ago we had a French Lop, Duchess, she used to see off the local cats. My lot tend to watch and listen when there's a cat about.