Minding my own business, I stumbled into someone else’s
I was toodling around, minding my own business, really I was.
I had bunnies on the brain, I admit. I was preparing for an interview with the director of a rabbit rescue in Missouri. She had just saved Dinky, a disabled rabbit left to languish without the use of his back legs at a Rural King farm store. He had been marked down and put on clearance.
What?
The story is about Dinky, the rescue, and the need to not breed rabbits (or any other animals) for pets to sell in stores. You can read it soon.
The only rabbits in my life are the wild desert cottontails who come for a drink of water and the vegetables I toss out under the low-hanging pepper trees. I don’t think much about the rabbits living as companion animals.
And I never think about them being bred and trapped into a small business that sells pieces of them as pet treats. A business in a neighboring town. Run by a woman I met once.
Now I am thinking about exactly that. A lot. It has been the week of the rabbit.
My first mistake – as it often is – was to be on Facebook. The cute bunny emojis lured me into a post I thought was advertising treats for rabbits. It was not.
Among an inventory and menu, they listed rabbit feet, rabbit tails, rabbit liver, rabbit ears (best sellers – sold out), rabbit heart (2 for $2), rabbit kidneys, dehydrated rabbit meat, pelt chews and (coming soon) homemade rabbit bone broth.
“Our rabbits are humanely raised!” it insisted. “What you get is clean, whole, unprocessed rabbit – because your dog deserves the best.”
F—k you.
I have not seen the operation, but this is what I imagine as my blood begins to boil and I start to spiral out:
I imagine the woman running the business out back in a shed somewhere, presumably chopping off a rabbit’s head – and then his feet, tail and ears. Then pulling out his heart, kidneys and liver. I’m sorry, but how else would she be doing it?
Peeling off their skin, making a pile of pelts. “Gently dehydrating” their muscles — what, laying out pieces on a tray in the desert sun?
I see saws and blades and drills hanging on the walls.
Then I open my eyes and shoot off an email to the California Department of Food and Agriculture to see if the rabbit-murder business is licensed.
Does it change anything if it is? I mean, in the first place, I don’t think the state should regulate the killing of animals; I think it should abolish it.
I investigate further while I wait for my answer.
I get chills when I find a photo of the owner and, is that? … wtf? … I know her.
I mean, I met this lady once. I didn’t know about the rabbits, but something about her turned me off.
The state got back to me pretty quick to say, “This business does not hold a pet food processor or pet food slaughter license with CDFA.” And would I like a list of licensed ones (rabbit murderers) instead?
It’s like when I asked Google what a “rabbitry” is. It asked me if I wanted to start my own (rabbit-murder) business. The world is indoctrinated and stacked against us, my friends.
That’s all the more reason to speak up for animals at every opportunity. Especially the animals in our own communities. It’s all the more reason to report this business, right? I might be able to shut it down.
Should I?
I can name two things I am afraid of. The first is that people close to me have been telling me to butt out of local issues lately. What if the rabbitry owner gets really pissed off and comes for me in the night? Or online. I’m not sure which would be worse.
Second, and more importantly, what if she gets closed down and can’t care for the bunnies she has? What if she abandons them? If I report her, I am responsible for what happens next. Do I have rescues lined up? No. I don’t even know how many rabbits she has.
If I report her and she gets the licenses to satisfy the state, the rabbits keep getting bred for dog treats.
If I don’t report her, the rabbits keep getting bred for dog treats.
Have you ever been in a situation like this? I’d love it if you’d drop me a note for use in a future story and tell me what you did. Please reach out at allie.irwin@gmail.com.
