Read Online How Animals Grieve by Barbara J. King - Free Book Online
Authors: Barbara J. King
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Just as I’ve watched Jeremy and Jilly do, the two would race around in the morning, playing and wearing themselves out, then sleep together later in the day. “Lucy was always the leader of their little expeditions,” Michelle explains, “up the stairs, or around the living room, or onto the balcony. Vincent followed her everywhere, because he always wanted to be near her. Watching him with Lucy, you almost thought that he hadn’t known there were other rabbits in the world, and now that he had discovered it, he was lost in the wonder and sheer delight of that fact.”
Sadly, Vincent and Lucy shared only eight or nine months together. Then Lucy got sick, with incurable infections in both ear canals that probably stemmed from her congenital condition. Despite surgery by an experienced veterinary team, she died. Vincent, Michelle says, “spent about a week doing tragic sweeps of the house, searching for her.” After that, he seemed to grasp that Lucy was not coming back. He fell into the sort of depressive state that will by now sound familiar: he stopped eating much and refused to leave his “rabbit condo.” Inside that house, he sat in Lucy’s preferred spot and did little else. The vigor he had shown when playing with Lucy was completely absent.
Michelle began to fear that Vincent too would die. She adopted a new rabbit, Annabel, hoping that Vincent might perk up. This he did; immediately upon meeting Annabel, his interest in everyday activities revived, as did his appetite for food.
Now, this serial bonding—first to Lucy, second to Annabel—might raise some questions. Could it be that Vincent wanted another rabbit nearby simply because he didn’t care for solitude? Did he care one way or the other whether that other warm bunny body belonged to Lucy or Annabel or someone else? Had he forgotten all about Lucy?
Since we can’t know Vincent’s thoughts, we can attack these questions only by taking a close look at the events in the months after Vincent met Annabel. He acted differently than he ever had before. At even the briefest separation from Annabel—say, when Annabel tucked herself into a corner of the apartment to nap—Vincent became anxious. He would search all over for her, with increasing distress if the search was unsuccessful. “Finally,” Michelle says, “we would pick him up and take him to wherever Annabel was, at which point he would relax immediately.” It seemed to her that Vincent feared losing Annabel as he had lost Lucy.
Seven months into his new friendship, Vincent’s anxious behavior stopped. Whether he came to trust the fact that Annabel wouldn’t disappear, whether he’d forgotten Lucy, or whether his behavioral shift owed to some other factor, no one knows. When dealing with rabbits, we shouldn’t assume that quick bonding to a new partner implies a lack of genuine mourning for the lost one, any more than we would assume that for bigger-brained mammals, including ourselves. In fact, why not turn our thoughts 180 degrees: Could it have been the deep satisfaction that Vincent experienced with Lucy that led him to revive so quickly when Annabel came on the scene? Perhaps the sight and smell of Annabel gave Vincent the rabbit equivalent of hope for renewed companionship. On the other hand, Michelle observes that Vincent and Annabel developed a quick-and-easy friendship but one that was less intense than Vincent and Lucy’s, even despite Vincent’s anxious searching early on.
After Michelle first contacted me, we began an e-mail correspondence. Several weeks into this exchange, Vincent died. This time, Michelle did something new. She showed Vincent’s body to Annabel. Annabel sniffed and licked her friend’s still form, then went away from and back to the body, the same pattern followed by the goat Myrtle when Blondie died. When Annabel tried to move Vincent’s body out of the condo she had shared with him, Michelle took it away for cremation.
Annabel didn’t seem to
Sadly, Vincent and Lucy shared only eight or nine months together. Then Lucy got sick, with incurable infections in both ear canals that probably stemmed from her congenital condition. Despite surgery by an experienced veterinary team, she died. Vincent, Michelle says, “spent about a week doing tragic sweeps of the house, searching for her.” After that, he seemed to grasp that Lucy was not coming back. He fell into the sort of depressive state that will by now sound familiar: he stopped eating much and refused to leave his “rabbit condo.” Inside that house, he sat in Lucy’s preferred spot and did little else. The vigor he had shown when playing with Lucy was completely absent.
Michelle began to fear that Vincent too would die. She adopted a new rabbit, Annabel, hoping that Vincent might perk up. This he did; immediately upon meeting Annabel, his interest in everyday activities revived, as did his appetite for food.
Now, this serial bonding—first to Lucy, second to Annabel—might raise some questions. Could it be that Vincent wanted another rabbit nearby simply because he didn’t care for solitude? Did he care one way or the other whether that other warm bunny body belonged to Lucy or Annabel or someone else? Had he forgotten all about Lucy?
Since we can’t know Vincent’s thoughts, we can attack these questions only by taking a close look at the events in the months after Vincent met Annabel. He acted differently than he ever had before. At even the briefest separation from Annabel—say, when Annabel tucked herself into a corner of the apartment to nap—Vincent became anxious. He would search all over for her, with increasing distress if the search was unsuccessful. “Finally,” Michelle says, “we would pick him up and take him to wherever Annabel was, at which point he would relax immediately.” It seemed to her that Vincent feared losing Annabel as he had lost Lucy.
Seven months into his new friendship, Vincent’s anxious behavior stopped. Whether he came to trust the fact that Annabel wouldn’t disappear, whether he’d forgotten Lucy, or whether his behavioral shift owed to some other factor, no one knows. When dealing with rabbits, we shouldn’t assume that quick bonding to a new partner implies a lack of genuine mourning for the lost one, any more than we would assume that for bigger-brained mammals, including ourselves. In fact, why not turn our thoughts 180 degrees: Could it have been the deep satisfaction that Vincent experienced with Lucy that led him to revive so quickly when Annabel came on the scene? Perhaps the sight and smell of Annabel gave Vincent the rabbit equivalent of hope for renewed companionship. On the other hand, Michelle observes that Vincent and Annabel developed a quick-and-easy friendship but one that was less intense than Vincent and Lucy’s, even despite Vincent’s anxious searching early on.
After Michelle first contacted me, we began an e-mail correspondence. Several weeks into this exchange, Vincent died. This time, Michelle did something new. She showed Vincent’s body to Annabel. Annabel sniffed and licked her friend’s still form, then went away from and back to the body, the same pattern followed by the goat Myrtle when Blondie died. When Annabel tried to move Vincent’s body out of the condo she had shared with him, Michelle took it away for cremation.
Annabel didn’t seem to
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