Hong Kong pet rabbits enjoy bunny resort while owners away

 Hong Kong pet rabbits enjoy bunny resort while owners away



HONG KONG (AP) — Rabbits scamper around a play area in a climate-controlled building in suburban Hong Kong, some climbing a castle made of wood while others explore a cotton tunnel.

In one of the world’s most densely populated cities, where most apartments range from small to miniscule, rabbits are popular pets. 

And when their owners are away, there are rabbit lovers ready to look after their lonely pets at Bunny Style, a luxury rabbit resort.

That’s especially evident this month, as the lifting of COVID-19 restrictions in Hong Kong is spurring a surge in travel for the Lunar New Year to welcome the Year of the Rabbit.

Donna Li, the owner of Bunny Style, said she’s fully booked for the holiday and keeps her charges happy with regular exercise, parties, spa treatments and lots of hay. 

“We aim to provide a secure environment,” Li said.

Li, who has two pet rabbits of her own, set up Bunny Style in June, starting with just a playroom offering space to hop and relief from Hong Kong’s hot, humid weather.

“To begin with, my idea was mainly about setting up a safe indoor play space with a suitable temperature for rabbits,” Li said.

As the government began lifting COVID-19 restrictions in September, Li sensed a need and swiftly set up boarding facilities. They were full over Christmas and Li has already begun taking bookings for Easter. 

With 15 rabbits, Li and her staff will be busy over the holiday, the most important in the Chinese calendar. Apart from feeding — some owners order special vegetable cakes in advance — there are hair-brushing, nail trimming and exercising to be managed. 

“I think rabbits understand what people say. They can sense whether we are being nice to them and look after them well,” Li said. “And so when I look after them, I talk to them a lot, telling them how beautiful and cute they are.” 

A livestream and video clips are also provided, “so we knew that our rabbit was out actively hopping and enjoying itself,” said Rainbow Li, who found Bunny Style on the internet and boarded her rabbit while she and her partner traveled over Christmas. 

Bunny Style charges about $15 per night, including half an hour of supervised play time. Beauty treatments and special menu items are extra. 

The animals’ popularity in Hong Kong has inevitably led to some owners finding they’ve bit off more than they can chew. For that, there are shelters such as Tolobunny, set up in 2015 and dedicated to finding new homes for abandoned rabbits, often at public adoption events.

Spokesperson Bridget Ng is already anticipating a surge of calls to the shelter’s 24-hour rescue hotline in the months after the new year. Already, its volunteers are temporarily housing 42 rabbits given up by their owners.

“Our observation is that throughout the year, especially at festive holidays like Valentine’s Day, Easter or Christmas, there are more people who want to keep rabbits, but after a few months, there will be more abandoned rabbits,” Ng said. 

Homeless dogs and cats still get more care, but “I hope there will be more attention and resources for all kinds of abandoned animals,” founder Winky Cheng said.

___

This story has been corrected to show that rabbits were provided with hay, not carrots.


CAM

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

That Uplifting Tweet You Just Shared? A Russian Troll Sent It

Image
Here’s what Russia’s 2020 disinformation operations look like, according to two experts on social media and propaganda. By   DARREN LINVILL   &   PATRICK WARREN Internet trolls don’t troll. Not the professionals at least. Professional trolls don’t go on social media to antagonize liberals or belittle conservatives. They are not narrow minded, drunk or angry. They don’t lack basic English language skills. They certainly aren’t  “somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds,”  as the president once put it. Your stereotypical trolls do exist on social media, but the amateurs aren’t a threat to Western democracy. Professional trolls, on the other hand, are the tip of the spear in the new digital, ideological battleground. To combat the threat they pose, we must first understand them — and take them seriously. MORE: https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/russia-troll-2020-election-interference-twitter-916482/ P...
Read more

The Nightmare Scenario That Keeps Election Lawyers Up At Night -- And Could Hand Trump A Second Term

Image
The Nightmare Scenario That Keeps Election Lawyers Up At Night -- And Could Hand Trump A Second Term   (Photo: Photos: Getty Images) Americans will almost certainly go to bed on Nov. 3 without knowing who won the presidential election. Since millions of people will vote by mail, constraints on time and resources will slow ballot counting into potentially a weeks-long process. Voting patterns suggest it’s likely that President  Donald Trump  could end Election Day in the lead in certain key states, only to be overtaken by Democratic opponent  Joe Biden  when more votes are tallied.  This could create a nightmare scenario during the three months stretching from Election Day to the Jan. 20 inauguration: a battle on the state and congressional level over who is the legitimate winner. This could include Congress reconvening on Jan. 6, presided over by Vice President  Mike Pence , with no consensus over its potential role in choosing the next president. This...
Read more

When Life Hands You Lemons

Image
 It's like this folks: sometimes your mind goes blank. Happens more than usual with me of course. Take this forum for instance. I wanted to post something today and couldn't think of a topic. At least not a non-sexual one and we know sexual ones lately have been frowned upon.  Then along comes one of our regulars and complains about something. Well, they might not say it was a complaint, just an observation, but it was a complaint. A minor one. It has something to do about being able to make something out of nothing. Sort of like me this morning, how to make a thread out of an empty head? But they (notice I am using the correct pronoun, not saying he or she), by what they said got me thinking. What I thought was: Not sure if that is the actual saying, if I remember correctly, I remember the saying going something like this: Umm, no, I don't think the saying I am thinking of goes that way either, maybe ONE of you good folks can remind me how the saying goes. Either way, when...
Read more