Happy endings for every bunny are Amy Honey’s goal
There is a steady stream of visitors through the pavilion at Hope for Wildlife rehabilitation centre in Seaforth, on Nova Scotia’s Eastern Shore. The pavilion is one of the first buildings inside the entrance to the centre and its inhabitants are cute, furry and irresistible to children and adults.
These qualities are what makes Amy Honey’s work in rabbit rescue necessary, so she takes every opportunity during visiting hours on Saturdays to educate everyone who passes through the pavilion on the realities of keeping a rabbit as a pet.
Rabbits are one of the most popular pets in North America, but Honey feels they are the most misunderstood.
“People understand cats and they understand dogs,” she says. “They think they understand bunnies, but they don’t.”
That means the most frequent words coming out of Honey’s mouth are “spay and neuter” but not just because rabbits have so many babies.
“Rabbits are fully capable of offering humans the same level of companionship and bonding as cats and dogs,” she says, “but what happens is that people don’t spay or neuter their rabbit, or set them up properly, and they don’t feed them properly. So they end up with a very unhappy critter.”
Up to ten rescued rabbits can be housed in the pavilion while waiting for medical treatment and fostering, so often the first observation and comment made by visitors is, “Ew, poop!”
That’s Honey’s cue to explain why there is poop everywhere, and dispel the idea that this is why rabbits can’t live inside houses as pets. Once a rabbit is neutered or spayed, they stop marking territory and can learn to use a litter box, just like a cat. Their personalities also emerge. According to Honey, who has two pet rabbits of her own, rabbits are “absolutely joyful to be around. They can bring such delight to a person’s life, similarly to a cat or dog.”
In fact, pet rabbits who are happy and healthy are known to do a “binky”: an athletic leaping around involving twists and kicks.
Fundraising remains a constant concern, as is finding ideal homes for the rabbits.
A “gateway rabbit”
The widespread lack of knowledge about the basic ways to create and maintain a happy and healthy pet rabbit is what prompted Honey’s first rescue in 2017.
“I saw this rabbit in an outside unit in the middle of February. Half of his nose had been ripped off and become necrotic—the tissue had died. I could tell he was in pain and was being bullied by the other rabbits because they were huddled together but he was off in a corner by himself.”
After convincing the owners to relinquish the rabbit to her because she worked at Hope for Wildlife, she took him to the centre’s clinic where the vets had to amputate the end of his nose. Honey took him home with her to recover—with no intention of returning him to that situation.
“I fell in love with him. I realized right then how much I love rabbits, so I always call him my gateway rabbit.”
Her husband named him Tycho, after 15th century mathematician Tycho Brahe, who lost his nose in a duel over a mathematical equation.
Honey was born and raised on the Eastern Shore, then moved to Vancouver, where she and her husband lived for 13 years. She began buying and selling vintage clothing and goods online, so when they decided to move back to Nova Scotia in 2008, she packed her collection in plastic totes to continue selling in order to fund their trip back home.
They returned to Seaforth where they bought the house her uncle had lived in for 30 years, and Honey kept buying and selling. When her collection outgrew its room in the house, Honey decided to open a store, called Fancy Lucky Vintage, just outside of Seaforth.
“It was my way of having an income but it was hit or miss. My location is in the middle of nowhere, and winters were really hard. I was never really making a living.”
From volunteer to employee
She started volunteering at Hope for Wildlife, a mere 20-minute walk from her house, and eventually, her hard work and commitment to cleanliness (in a place where poop is plentiful) landed her a full-time job.
That meant when she suddenly became a rabbit rescuer, she could convert her store into a social enterprise, which means all the profits from the shop go to the rescue.
“It’s always been a joy and a passion to rescue things—even clothing,” she laughs. “My creative outlet is the fashion and the textiles. I love all that stuff so much and I didn’t want to give it up.”
But the shop alone can’t support the rabbit rescue. Honey says she couldn’t do it without the support of Hope Swinimer, who founded Hope for Wildlife.
“From the minute I brought that little rabbit in with the nose, Hope has been so helpful to me. If I’d had to pay for that surgery out of pocket, I could not have afforded it, but Hope was gracious about getting her vets to take a look.”
At the time, Swinimer also ran a municipal animal shelter, so whenever a rabbit came in, she’d ask Honey to see if she could find a home for it.
“At first, I was just taking them home with me and popping them into rooms in our house,” Honey explains. “We don’t have a big house or anything but I’d tell my husband I was putting a rabbit in his office, or in the guest room. I even had one in the bathroom. That went on for a year, until I looked around and said, ‘I have a house full of bunnies’.”
Eventually, Honey’s Bunnies Rabbit Rescue came to reside full-time in the pavilion at Hope for Wildlife. Bringing in her own vet and vet tech, Honey is able to access the centre’s hospital one Sunday a month at no cost for the spaying, neutering and basic treatment of her rescued rabbits. But for all medical or emergency needs the rest of the month, she must go to a regular vet clinic and pay the full fees. Fundraising is as constant a concern for her as finding good homes for rabbits in need.
Education key to happy bunnies
The pavilion housing the rabbit rescue is open during Hope for Wildlife’s visiting hours on Saturdays and Honey’s phone pings constantly the entire time. She receives ten to fifteen calls and messages a day from people wanting her to take their rabbit or wanting to know why their rabbit bit them. The most serious cases get priority.
She never knows what’s going to come in, and some of the rescues are not for the faint of heart.
“I had one little guy who had been living in a lobster trap in someone’s front yard. He had been living with a broken leg for six months. When I got him in, I was shocked he was even alive. We had to amputate his leg; it had not set at all and had healed backwards.”
Other rabbits with come in with such bad eye infections, they can’t see, or with their teeth growing into the roof of their mouth because they weren’t given hay.
This is why Honey feels the focus of her rescue work must shift to education.
“I am focusing more on trying to repair people’s relationships with their rabbits, like when they contact me saying they can’t keep their rabbit anymore because it’s pooping everywhere. Educating people is at the top of my list, and educating people before they get their rabbits is critical.”
On her Instagram account, (@honeysbunniesrabbitrescue) Honey is able to catch people’s attention with cute bunny photos, then educate them about rabbits as pets (as well as ask for donations). In one post, she wrote about the happy ending for a rabbit named Penelope, who turned out
to be a male Rex. After a few months at the rescue, he went on a date in a house with another rabbit and it worked out. Mr. Penelope found a home.
“Rabbits are so happy when they have a friend to bond with, it is absolutely the best thing for them,” Honey wrote
in the Instagram post. “They must be spayed/neutered before trying a date, and I can step you through absolutely everything for the process.”
To most of us, working full-time, running a store, and rescuing the alarming number of rabbits who need medical care and new homes would seem overwhelming and exhausting. For Amy Honey, her joy and passion for rescuing—whether vintage clothes or injured rabbits—keeps her hopping, hoping for better outcomes, and plenty of binkies, for every bunny.