late-nite snak

The bunnies are settling in pretty well. I'm starting to get to know them, little by little. I have most of her coat off, but Cosset still has terrible matts underneath. The underside of her neck is a huge muff of matts, and she really, really doesn't like me touching under there. Worse still is under her back legs. I'm just terrified of cutting her, since there doesn't seem to be a way of getting up under the matts. Poor girl has some bare pink spots on her back of scar tissue, I assume where she's been cut in the past. My fingers are all swollen from working on her with my now-dull grooming scissors, so I went and bought some Fiskars as recommended by rabbit experts. Butch, on the other hand, (with his luscious coat to protect) is using his litter box almost without fail. And Junior, he's just all over the place.

This site was recommended over on Ravelry for understanding rabbit language, and it's fascinating. It even compares learning to communicate with rabbits to human cultural studies. I love the comparison of another species to another culture, since it is. With the signals of respect and affection that are described on the site though, I am stumped as how I'm to accomplish all the necessary tasks - clipping, taking them out of their cages, etc. etc., without offending them. Judging from our interactions tonight, Cosset is still insulted from our clipping sessions. I tried to apologize in rabbitspeak again and again, and she was having none of it.