|
20 Years with BUNS
This year is the 25th anniversary of BUNS! We're celebrating by sharing stories from our volunteers about their experiences with BUNS. This month's story comes from Jackie Zaida:
Thinking about the fact that Bunnies Urgently Needing Shelter is celebrating their 25th anniversary makes me realize how young BUNS was when my family started volunteering.
We’ve been a part of BUNS for the past 20 years, every Sunday at the shelter and often representing the rabbits off-site as well.
When my older daughter was in 3rd grade she wanted a rabbit, so I agreed to start looking into it. Having always been proponents of adopting dogs, we started our search at the Humane Society and found only two very large, not very social rabbits. Not a good fit for a home with children. What I did find at the Humane Society was a copy of the House Rabbit Handbook. I was able to borrow it and our search for a rabbit continued. Unfortunately we did not learn of BUNS. We found a little dwarf rex at a pet store which no longer exists. We brought her home and set her up in our living room and learned we knew nothing about rabbits.
Darla Cannon, a volunteer at the time worked with my husband Dan and told us about BUNS which soon led to us volunteering as a whole family. When we started volunteering there were 18 indoor cages and around a dozen hutches scattered around the yard under trees for shade. Guinea pigs were a rare occurrence, but when we had them they were housed in very small hutches. I remember washing litter pans over wood pallets laid down. There were no storage sheds yet and the kennels by the wash area usually had dogs in them. Occasionally other animals were housed in there too. Over the years there have been goats, turkeys, pigs, and, for one memorable summer, sea lions.
BUNS was not enclosed by a chain link fence 20 years ago, nor was there a division between DAWG and the County (but that’s another story). We had a decorative wood picket fence, but it was no protection for our animals from dogs that got loose.
I quickly got involved behind the scenes with the board serving as secretary, and even being president for several years. I still do the home visits for adoptions. Dan found himself helping with shelter improvements. Starting with building exercise pens, and moving on to new two story hutches. Hard to remember back to when we only had around a half dozen pens. Both our girls volunteered until they went off to college. While helping at BUNS they created our first guinea pig brochure.
Looking back over 20 years what memories stick with me? First, not long ago, when we had a big rescue of lionhead rabbits, lops, and dwarfs. Hutches in pens as well as the creation of “room C” with cages for housing the overflow. We had to exercise rabbits every other day since there were so many. I also remember when there was a wild fire with a lot of evacuations and we took in so many rabbits we had cages stacked up on top of hutches. Thankfully just about every animal was reclaimed when the fire was under control. Today, though our numbers are low and very manageable, I know we can deal with whatever fate throws our way.
I think the future looks bright for BUNS and I'm proud that our family has been a part of getting us to this point in the story. I love looking at our white board in room B seeing all the names of our adoptees. It seems to me that we have more repeat adopters or new adopters who know about us.
Stay tuned next month for more about BUNS early years! Be sure to subscribe to our newsletter so you don't miss the March edition of The Carrot Tribune!
|
