https://www.instagram.com/minilop_marmaduke/

Marmaduke, Derby (2024)

The Duke of Derwent

After deciding that we work too much to have a dog and not being overly keen on cats, the ridiculous suggestion of getting a rabbit to have in the house was put forward by Mrs Y. Unsurprisingly, Mr Y ever the pessimist was incredibly reluctant and stated that Mrs Y was quite frankly nuts if she ever thought that a rabbit could live in the house like a dog and would jump up for cuddles on the sofa. However, doubts were parked and a quick google search unearthed this miserable looking creature;

We immediately made contact (with the owner, not directly with Marmaduke) and set out to go and pay a visit. Safe to say, we immediately fell in love and he even has a back story!

So BRC rung Marmaduke born 04/06/10 to Vikki (opal) and Chico (high rufus orange) was bred by Upton Lops (Pontefract). He was then later acquired by someone in or around Leeds and shown at local events. Some googling revealed a couple of potential locations (http://leedslops.webs.com/ourminibucks.htm and https://brightsideminilops.weebly.com/mini-lop-bucks.html), but we’re not 100% if the Marmaduke’s on these pages are the same one as ours... more 90% sure, they sure look like him! Anyway, after his stint in the North, he was couriered down to Lilbank Lops in Matlock who received him in quite bad condition. Apparently, he was full of mites, matted fur etc. so these issues were addressed and then at some point he was advertised on PreLoved.

Before we took him away, the previous owners mentioned that Marmaduke had an allergy to saw dust and using paper based bedding seemed to reduce the amount he was sneezing. We simply accepted this and took him away, not knowing any better considering this is our first rabbit. He cost us nothing despite there being a price on the ad, however they could see that we were genuine and the price was merely there to deter snake owners!

Then Marmaduke’s transition to HouseRabbit started. It started with a large cage and nowadays his home has evolved into a large pen with an upstairs toilet...I wish I was joking about the latter;

Back in the early days, Marmaduke really tested us on whether we actually made a good choice getting a rabbit and having one inside. He came with his tackle in tact and like any other animal, this made him territorial and his marked his territory by spraying. This was definitely a learning curve and something we really needed to sort as soon as possible! However, this wasn’t going to be straight forward...

Despite Marmaduke transitioning from hutch to house, he was still sneezing and it was quite violent. We had dust free hay and paper bedding, but nothing seemed to help. Our vets prescribed antibiotics which seemed to help initially, but the sneezing continued. By this time we were convinced it wasn’t an allergy at all and it was some underlying condition that hadn’t previously been treated. Sometimes, breeders have so many rabbits that often the health is second to appearance and we believe this may have been the case with Marmaduke,

We decided to go ahead with the neutering, noting that rabbits were notoriously difficult to put under anesthetic which maybe complicated further by his unknown sneezing problem. This was quite a nervous time for us but luckily, our vets (Scarsdale Pride/Oakwood) were exceptional and he survived. Neutering made him the same people loving rabbit he was but without the uncontrollable urge to mark his territory, we couldn't recommend it enough! Marmaduke may have a different opinion, but I’m sure he’d thank us for the health benefits.

Still sneezing, we made several trips to the vets which included one for an x-ray. The x-ray suggested that one of his nasal passages was partially blocked and the vets recommended tear duct flushes to try and clear whatever it was. Marmaduke is so well behaved at the vets, he has these whilst conscious! A couple of flushes later and he has been sneeze free for quite some time! A massive thank you must go out to our vets because they have been brilliant over the past few years and we couldn’t thank them enough.

So nowadays Marmaduke is sneeze free, he has a large home and is free roam downstairs when we’re not at work. His litter training is questionable, but at least he doesn’t chew anything. He makes our house our home and we couldn’t be without him. We read a lot about other rabbits and the ‘bunstruction’ they cause and we consider ourselves to be incredibly lucky to have what we’ve got, despite often feeling like bunny slaves... but apparently this is quite common with every rabbit owner!