TRANS-SPECIES LIVING ARCHIVES
House and Rabbits and Margo DeMello
No culture can live if it attempts to be exclusive ~ Mahatma Gandhi
Margo lives in the New Mexican steppes in a home she and her husband designed for their community of fifty-two rabbits, four Chihuahuas, two cats and one parrot. By profession, she is a cultural anthropologist, having received her doctorate in 1995 from the University of California, Davis, and teaches sociology, cultural studies, and anthropology at Central New Mexico Community College. Additionally, Margo is the President and Executive Director of House Rabbit Society (HRS), a non-profit organization funded in 1988 dedicated to the rescue, protection, and care of domesticated rabbits and to helping people understand rabbits for who they really are.
Margo brings a unique perspective to trans-species living with her appreciation of culture: community living, language, and custom, and how these behaviors and ideas are transmitted through time and place. It is well established that diverse wildlife species have culture. Indeed studies of chimpanzee and other nonhuman primate communities comprise a central theme in anthropology and our understanding of human social history and the evolution of ideas and knowledge. However, much less attention has been devoted to the role of culture among domesticated animals and how they and their human community members co-create meaning.
Margo and her rabbits, the rabbits and their human, describe the richness of culture shared between species. In her narrative of life among rabbits, we see how principles of trans-species psychology translate to day-to-day living. For example, in the way that Margo’s house has been designed, she and her husband have created space and opportunity to support rabbit agency, self-actualization (or individuation), and cultural self-determination. All of which work toward not only caring for other animals’ physical welfare, but changing human behaviour so that other animals are able to be active partners in our collective knowledge and culture making.
“When we moved from California to New Mexico in 2004, we decided it was just as efficient to design and build a home from scratch, as it was to remodel an existing home. To truly create a home that reflects the aesthetics, needs, and desires of house rabbits as seen through their eyes, it takes more than a few pieces of cardboard, bowls, and crates. It is true that most anything is an improvement from the conditions that rescued rabbits come from. In contrast to the terrors of being a meat rabbit or living in a tiny dirty cage in a pet store, the offer of living in a loving, caring home is welcomed gratefully by all bunnies. For over a decade, we had made a series of small and big changes to our old house to accommodate the rabbits and rabbit living. In so doing, we were able to create a rabbit-friendly home and enjoy a wonderful –yet messy-- life together with the many rabbits who came into our home through rescue.
But when we picked up and moved to New Mexico, we had an opportunity to put into practice from the ground up all that we had learned over the years about rabbit culture and values. Crafting a home that appeals to rabbits as well as people is easy, but to make it aesthetically pleasing and efficient, takes more. It means designing a structure and life where both species’ needs are met in the same space. There are three main things to know about rabbits. One, they love to chew wood and all sort of things. Two, they are very active and like to explore and run around and socialize. Three, while they do use litterboxes, they do mark territory with urine and feces. This means you have to make sure electrical outlets and wires are out of reach and other things that you don’t want gnawed and chewed, like wooden baseboards, and that their living space is ample and easy to clean.
Our house floorplan basically resembles a big square donut. The “hole in the center” is a tiled courtyard that functions as the outdoor commons where the rabbits spend a lot of time. The weather here is generally good, not too hot nor too cold, so that the bunnies can enjoy a protected outdoor space with lots of room. There are rabbit doors through which they can go in and out, weather permitting. Inside the house, floors are also tiled so that they can be cleaned and swept easily of hay and rabbit pellets.
Our rabbits form four main groups, and I emphasize “our” because we –dogs, cats, humans, and rabbits--represent a constellation of communities together in the home. One room is dedicated to the largest rabbit community that on average comprises 30-50 individuals. In addition to a concrete floor, the electric outlets are hidden and high so that the bunnies cannot reach them. The walls are coated with material that is “unchewable” and there are shelves, cardboard boxes to hide in and chew, dog hammocks, soft beds, and other cozy sleeping and playing structures. Hay and water are available all the time.
Outside of the big group, anywhere from four to ten rabbits live with us intimately as part of the family including those who have serious health issues which require intensive care. Today that number is 8 and those rabbits live in the bedroom, living room, and guest room. Some have age-related infirmities, and some have difficulty living in the big group due to their personality or their past history of neglect or abuse. These experiences not only affect their physical health but mental and emotional wellbeing.
For example, there are some rabbits who never get over the fear of humans. Even after many years of living in sanctuary, they never forget what they have endured and the anxiety that it may happen again. They just don’t recover over trauma, nor are they able to trust humans again. Often, these rabbits form a deep bond with another rabbit who is much more assertive and powerful within the group. But it is important to keep in mind that, like people, every rabbit is unique. Other rabbits who come in from equally horrible backgrounds are immediately happy and take a real joy in life as soon as they arrive in sanctuary. Each has specific needs. Subsequently, this diversity of experience, history, and personality also shapes how their living areas are designed. What we try to do is provide space, safety, and flexibility so that each rabbit has the opportunity to develop relationships with whomever they wish, learn how to run and move again without fear, and make choices on his or her own.
The rabbit community is more than just a collection of individuals. What we have learned and observed over the years is house rabbit cultures in the making. The rabbits are members of dynamic groups and they each and collectively have had to learn how to deal with complex relationships. House rabbit cultures are different than those of wild European rabbits. For example, in contrast to what is believed to be the case in the wild, our groups tend to be female dominated. Our rabbits exhibit territorial, hierarchal social structures and behaviour that mimic those in the wild, but there are patterns in house rabbit behaviour that uniquely emerged with domestication. They do not run free outside, they have been spayed and neutered, food is provided predictably, they are secure from predators and climatic extremes, and they live in a human-dominated, albeit supportive, environment. Subsequently, in this highly regulated context, relationships, as opposed to other environmental factors with which wild rabbits must contend, are the dominant factor in everyday life.
Regulated does not mean static. Things in the community are always changing. Depending on their history, rabbits live between 5-10 years. Those who are rescued and come to live with us arrive at various ages. As a result, we experience death and loss routinely and so community structure is always in a state of flux because of natural (and sadly, unnatural due to rabbits’ histories of abuse) cycles of life. And there are shifts that come with the alchemy of different personalities. Through sheer force of personality, one rabbit will emerge a leader, and then, when rabbit community demographics change with new members, someone else will lead. It’s exciting and moving to watch how they all learn, relate, process, and adapt.
There are cultural differences between the groups—they eat and sleep and interact with each other distinctly according to the group in which they belong. On the whole, the group in totality has lived 15 years together. Their group behaviour today is different than it was five years ago, ten years ago, and at the very beginning when they first began together. Now when new rabbits come in they learn the “ropes” quickly. Learning did not work that fast at first. The groups today are well-established cultures with definite, coherent behavior and communication patterns that are retained beyond individual lives.
So yes, definitely rabbits have culture. But do they have and use symbolic thought? Strictly speaking, house rabbits readily qualify as having culture except, perhaps, in this one respect. Can house rabbits, or would they, given the right materials and opportunities, do things like chimpanzees and gorillas in captivity who use symbolic language with keyboard and sign language? Do rabbits have a conception of religion?
These are hard questions to verify. But in our book Stories Rabbits Tell Susan Davis and I write about how rabbits may very well have symbolic thought. For instance, we have seen them engage in a “construction project”, for example, tearing paper and arranging it in a certain way, and then it appears that they “tell” a rabbit friend about the project, which they both then engage in together. This seems to be a form of communication involving displacement; in other words, they are “talking” about something that is not present.
Actually, there is no real reason to think that rabbits don’t have symbolic thought. The challenge is to teach ourselves how to see these actions. It takes years to see beyond human projections and really grasp rabbit life, minds, and culture. In other words, just like it took several years—stability of circumstance and members-- to create a house rabbit culture in our home, it takes us humans time to create a bi-species (rabbit-human) culture where we share language, custom and values. And that is happening in intriguing ways.
Take Bunspace as one example. The house rabbit community is burgeoning all over the world and developing a vital internet network. When HRS started in California, all our communication was through snail mail and phones. Then, twenty-one years ago, we created the House Rabbit Journal and eventually listserves and newsgroups sprouted up. Today there is a My Space for rabbits called Bunspace.
Bunspace is a social networking site which brings together rabbit people who speak through their rabbits. People don’t have profiles on Bunspace; their rabbits have profiles. For example, Igor (view Igor video here) has friends like Rascal who lives in Arizona and they talk with each other through their human guardians and family members. Is this anthropomorphizing? No, I don’t think so. There is a difference in the ways people communicate with each other. People are trying hard to understand the consciousness of these rabbits. It is a legitimate effort to reflect their animals’ consciousness and thought processes. Bunspace seems to be about how to understand what are our rabbits are thinking and how to better serve their needs. It is also an important place for rabbit guardians to work out their own complicated feelings about their rabbits, and especially, when a rabbit dies.
For example, Igor went through a crisis last year that played itself out on Bunspace (see photos). Sweet Girl was Igor’s girlfriend and they spent all their time together. Igor loved her. Then, their relationship changed when a special needs rabbit named Pilgrim came to live with us. Igor was furious at Pilgrim’s presence. Then, Sweet Girl died during routine surgery and I felt that he blamed Pilgrim for Sweet Girl’s death. I had Igor blog about his grief over Sweet Girl and his anger towards Pilgrim on Bunspace, and was able to deal with his upset and my grief at the same time. The blog was clearly written by me and was in part about me, but it was not just about me, it was also from and by him. We humans in Bunspace are like communication intermediaries connecting rabbits to rabbits all over the world. In other words, humans are filling in, connecting across space, with words, what the rabbits would be doing and saying if they lived together. In the words of Gay Bradshaw, Bunspace is a “trans-species relational field” and an example of how through living intimately with another species, we are developing new ways of being and relating not only with other animals but with other humans at the same time. Rabbit culture is changing human culture."
References
Davis, S and M. DeMello. 2003. Stories Rabbits Tell: A Natural and Cultural History of a Misunderstood Creature. Lantern Books.
Smith, J. A. 2003. “Constructing a ‘Performance Ethic’: The Discourse and Practices of the House Rabbit Society.” Society & Animals, Volume 11 (2).
Miscellaneous articles and FAQs from www.rabbit.org
photo credits
House rabbit photos courtesy Margo DeMello
back to top
House and Rabbits and Margo DeMello
No culture can live if it attempts to be exclusive ~ Mahatma Gandhi
Margo brings a unique perspective to trans-species living with her appreciation of culture: community living, language, and custom, and how these behaviors and ideas are transmitted through time and place. It is well established that diverse wildlife species have culture. Indeed studies of chimpanzee and other nonhuman primate communities comprise a central theme in anthropology and our understanding of human social history and the evolution of ideas and knowledge. However, much less attention has been devoted to the role of culture among domesticated animals and how they and their human community members co-create meaning.
Margo and her rabbits, the rabbits and their human, describe the richness of culture shared between species. In her narrative of life among rabbits, we see how principles of trans-species psychology translate to day-to-day living. For example, in the way that Margo’s house has been designed, she and her husband have created space and opportunity to support rabbit agency, self-actualization (or individuation), and cultural self-determination. All of which work toward not only caring for other animals’ physical welfare, but changing human behaviour so that other animals are able to be active partners in our collective knowledge and culture making.
But when we picked up and moved to New Mexico, we had an opportunity to put into practice from the ground up all that we had learned over the years about rabbit culture and values. Crafting a home that appeals to rabbits as well as people is easy, but to make it aesthetically pleasing and efficient, takes more. It means designing a structure and life where both species’ needs are met in the same space. There are three main things to know about rabbits. One, they love to chew wood and all sort of things. Two, they are very active and like to explore and run around and socialize. Three, while they do use litterboxes, they do mark territory with urine and feces. This means you have to make sure electrical outlets and wires are out of reach and other things that you don’t want gnawed and chewed, like wooden baseboards, and that their living space is ample and easy to clean.
Our house floorplan basically resembles a big square donut. The “hole in the center” is a tiled courtyard that functions as the outdoor commons where the rabbits spend a lot of time. The weather here is generally good, not too hot nor too cold, so that the bunnies can enjoy a protected outdoor space with lots of room. There are rabbit doors through which they can go in and out, weather permitting. Inside the house, floors are also tiled so that they can be cleaned and swept easily of hay and rabbit pellets.
Our rabbits form four main groups, and I emphasize “our” because we –dogs, cats, humans, and rabbits--represent a constellation of communities together in the home. One room is dedicated to the largest rabbit community that on average comprises 30-50 individuals. In addition to a concrete floor, the electric outlets are hidden and high so that the bunnies cannot reach them. The walls are coated with material that is “unchewable” and there are shelves, cardboard boxes to hide in and chew, dog hammocks, soft beds, and other cozy sleeping and playing structures. Hay and water are available all the time.
Outside of the big group, anywhere from four to ten rabbits live with us intimately as part of the family including those who have serious health issues which require intensive care. Today that number is 8 and those rabbits live in the bedroom, living room, and guest room. Some have age-related infirmities, and some have difficulty living in the big group due to their personality or their past history of neglect or abuse. These experiences not only affect their physical health but mental and emotional wellbeing.
The rabbit community is more than just a collection of individuals. What we have learned and observed over the years is house rabbit cultures in the making. The rabbits are members of dynamic groups and they each and collectively have had to learn how to deal with complex relationships. House rabbit cultures are different than those of wild European rabbits. For example, in contrast to what is believed to be the case in the wild, our groups tend to be female dominated. Our rabbits exhibit territorial, hierarchal social structures and behaviour that mimic those in the wild, but there are patterns in house rabbit behaviour that uniquely emerged with domestication. They do not run free outside, they have been spayed and neutered, food is provided predictably, they are secure from predators and climatic extremes, and they live in a human-dominated, albeit supportive, environment. Subsequently, in this highly regulated context, relationships, as opposed to other environmental factors with which wild rabbits must contend, are the dominant factor in everyday life.
Regulated does not mean static. Things in the community are always changing. Depending on their history, rabbits live between 5-10 years. Those who are rescued and come to live with us arrive at various ages. As a result, we experience death and loss routinely and so community structure is always in a state of flux because of natural (and sadly, unnatural due to rabbits’ histories of abuse) cycles of life. And there are shifts that come with the alchemy of different personalities. Through sheer force of personality, one rabbit will emerge a leader, and then, when rabbit community demographics change with new members, someone else will lead. It’s exciting and moving to watch how they all learn, relate, process, and adapt.
There are cultural differences between the groups—they eat and sleep and interact with each other distinctly according to the group in which they belong. On the whole, the group in totality has lived 15 years together. Their group behaviour today is different than it was five years ago, ten years ago, and at the very beginning when they first began together. Now when new rabbits come in they learn the “ropes” quickly. Learning did not work that fast at first. The groups today are well-established cultures with definite, coherent behavior and communication patterns that are retained beyond individual lives.
These are hard questions to verify. But in our book Stories Rabbits Tell Susan Davis and I write about how rabbits may very well have symbolic thought. For instance, we have seen them engage in a “construction project”, for example, tearing paper and arranging it in a certain way, and then it appears that they “tell” a rabbit friend about the project, which they both then engage in together. This seems to be a form of communication involving displacement; in other words, they are “talking” about something that is not present.
Actually, there is no real reason to think that rabbits don’t have symbolic thought. The challenge is to teach ourselves how to see these actions. It takes years to see beyond human projections and really grasp rabbit life, minds, and culture. In other words, just like it took several years—stability of circumstance and members-- to create a house rabbit culture in our home, it takes us humans time to create a bi-species (rabbit-human) culture where we share language, custom and values. And that is happening in intriguing ways.
Take Bunspace as one example. The house rabbit community is burgeoning all over the world and developing a vital internet network. When HRS started in California, all our communication was through snail mail and phones. Then, twenty-one years ago, we created the House Rabbit Journal and eventually listserves and newsgroups sprouted up. Today there is a My Space for rabbits called Bunspace.
Bunspace is a social networking site which brings together rabbit people who speak through their rabbits. People don’t have profiles on Bunspace; their rabbits have profiles. For example, Igor (view Igor video here) has friends like Rascal who lives in Arizona and they talk with each other through their human guardians and family members. Is this anthropomorphizing? No, I don’t think so. There is a difference in the ways people communicate with each other. People are trying hard to understand the consciousness of these rabbits. It is a legitimate effort to reflect their animals’ consciousness and thought processes. Bunspace seems to be about how to understand what are our rabbits are thinking and how to better serve their needs. It is also an important place for rabbit guardians to work out their own complicated feelings about their rabbits, and especially, when a rabbit dies.
References
Davis, S and M. DeMello. 2003. Stories Rabbits Tell: A Natural and Cultural History of a Misunderstood Creature. Lantern Books.
Smith, J. A. 2003. “Constructing a ‘Performance Ethic’: The Discourse and Practices of the House Rabbit Society.” Society & Animals, Volume 11 (2).
Miscellaneous articles and FAQs from www.rabbit.org
photo credits
House rabbit photos courtesy Margo DeMello
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"Science in service to animals"
House Rabbit Society
House Rabbit Society is a volunteer-based international non-profit organization with two primary goals:
1) To rescue abandoned rabbits and find permanent homes for them and
2) To educate the public and assist humane societies, through our website, publications on rabbit care, phone consultation, and classes upon request.
We operate an adoption and education center at our headquarters in Richmond, California.
Since HRS was founded in 1988, over 24,000 rabbits have been rescued through our foster homes across the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia. Many of these bunnies had run out of time at animal shelters and were scheduled for euthanasia; others had been deemed "unadoptable" because of age, health, or disposition. Because there is no time limit on our rescued rabbits, HRS foster parents are able to spend time getting to know each individual bunny and can then match him or her with an appropriate home. . We neuter/spay all incoming rabbits, obtain any necessary veterinary care, and attend to their social needs.