a rabbit rescue with an educational focus

But they’re also considered “exotic pets” — a term that essentially refers to pets that aren’t cats or dogs — which means there’s fewer bunny-related veterinary resources to go around, as experienced rabbit owners well know.

Because veterinary care is a major source of education about how to take care of pets, that means rabbit owners can have a tendency to know less about how to take care of their rabbits than people generally do for cats and dogs. And that can lead to problems — including, ultimately, abandoned bunnies, a topic that comes up yearly in the months following Easter.

That’s according to Nathalie Lemaire, founder of the all-volunteer Napa Bunnies, a rabbit rescue organization that runs through foster care, and carries out regular wellness and vaccination clinics. Throughout it all, Lemaire tries to fill that educational gap and advocate for the responsible care of bunnies.

Lemaire was motivated to start what eventually became the organization back in late 2019. She had noticed a colony of feral rabbits in central Napa, and reached out to a bunch of different organizations to see what could be done to help the rabbits. It was clear to her from talking with residents that the colony had existed for years, and the rabbits were living short, brutal lives.

“They were all very young,” Lemaire said. “I mean, we’re talking six months, maybe, was their average life span.”

Lemaire explained that domestic rabbits — unlike the small brown wild rabbits one occasionally sees — can’t survive in wild conditions for long. And, if feral rabbits find each other and breed, that can cause a population explosion, as bunnies breed very quickly. There would likely have been way more rabbits in the colony, she said, had they been able to survive for long.  

Lemaire felt something needed to be done about the rabbit colony. She reached out to her friend Deborah Claassen, whom she knew through rabbit activism, and asked her whether it’d be crazy if she just took the rabbits, tried to get them fixed, and tried to find them homes.

“I figured she would talk me out of it,” Lemaire said. “But she was like, ‘count me in.’”

Lemaire estimated that, together, the two invested over $10,000 of their own money in the rescue efforts. And others joined and helped out once they got started, including organizations such as the Napa County Animal Shelter, which took in many of the animals. By April 2020, the group had rescued a total of 64 rabbits.

The rabbit rescue efforts also made Lemaire realize more needed to be done to educate the Napa community.

“Towards the end of that whole undertaking, I realized there was a need for more education,” Lemaire said. “People would call and say ‘hey, can we surrender these rabbits to you?’ Or ‘we don’t want them anymore,’ or ‘which vet will accept rabbits?’ I just realized there needs to be more education, more support.”

In mid-2021, Lemaire decided she might as well make the organization a nonprofit. Napa Bunnies today carries on its work of rescuing rabbits; volunteers foster rabbits while the organization attempts to place them in good homes. (A good home, to Lemaire, particularly means the bunny will housed inside with a fair amount of space, around people and away from the predator and climate-related stresses of the outdoor world.)

Lemaire herself, in April, had four rabbits on-hand in her home. That included Dandy, Lemaire’s own rabbit who is not up for adoption, along with Papillon, Camden and Wally. Papillon, who has a physical disability of splayed legs, was technically abandoned, Lemire said. A woman came to Napa Bunnies with Papillion, then a baby, and wanted help figuring out vet care. Once Lemire explained to the woman the care Papillon would need, the woman told her that it wouldn’t work for her.

Along with the adoption work, Napa Bunnies puts on wellness and vaccine clinics, and offers rabbit boarding while people are away. (Camden, a young purebred Netherland dwarf mix from a rabbit breeder, was scheduled to be vaccinated.)

The final rabbit present in the house, Wally, is only a few months old. A woman got a Holland Lop off of Craigslist, Lemaire said; it was a female rabbit who wasn’t spayed. Wally and his two siblings were the result. Wally was brought to the rescue as he was slowly starving to death, according to Lemaire, because he didn’t get the right nutrition as a baby. He now has dental problems that require tooth trimmings and will necessitate surgery. (Lemaire noted that particular rabbit breeds, such as lops, are particularly prone to dental issues.)

“He could have a ton of other issues that we’ll have to see over time, but for now we’re just trying to put some weight on him,” Lemaire said.

Adoption is a fairly rigorous process, Lemaire said, and involves a home visit to make sure the rabbit will be able to live a good life in what could be their new home. The organization hosts adoption events the last Sunday of every month, at the Napa Pet Food Express at 3916 Bel Aire Plaza.

Oakland-based Dr. Linda Siperstein, who goes by the name Dr. Sip, runs a veterinary house call practice specifically focused on exotic pets, including bunnies. Her house calls are mostly limited to the East Bay, but she’s worked with Napa Bunnies as the veterinarian of record for the organization over the past few years — which means she provides a range of medical care for the rabbits that Napa Bunnies take in, and she’s present for vaccine clinics.

Bunnies are the third most popular pet in the United States, Dr. Sip noted, but it’s certainly more difficult to even find information about how to properly take care of them than it is for dogs and cats.

“Information and resources aren’t always as tangible or as obvious, sitting right in front of people, as that information is for dogs and cats,” Dr. Sip said. “And there’s a little more access in dog and cat care, in that most people have the expectation that their dogs are going to need certain vaccines routinely, maybe flea prevention or some other regular care needs that would necessitate going to the vet.”

One reason there’s an education gap is because pet rabbits traditionally haven’t been on a regular, once or twice a year vet visit schedule that dogs or cats have. That means veterinarians don’t have the pet rabbit and the rabbit owners as a regular “captive audience” to provide education about how to properly take care of the pet.

That situation has improved somewhat with the arrival of rabbit hemorrhagic disease in the United States in 2020, Sip said. Rabbit owners who read about the disease learned that they needed to seek out a vaccine for their pet, and that led to an increase in vet visits to vets that focus on rabbits.

“People became more aware of rabbit care, or had a reason they had to go to a rabbit vet because not every vet was going to carry the vaccine, it was too much of a hassle to,” Dr. Sip said. “So you’re going to tend to have to go to someone that has some rabbit experience. And now suddenly the vet has that captive audience.”

Education is an important part of Dr. Sip’s practice, she said, given that many health problems in pet rabbits originate from inadequate care.

“A great deal of what I do in my house calls isn’t just the exam and providing care or treating medical conditions,” Dr. Sip said. “It’s also reviewing all of the husbandry, all of the care, and trying to up the owner’s game.”

Cissy Horne, who now fosters for Napa bunnies, said her bunny ownership journey started when she got a free bunny on Facebook about four years ago because someone couldn’t take care of it. She had other pets and didn’t think taking care of a rabbit would be too different.

“I was like, you know what, how different from a dog could it be?” Horne said.

But after a while, Horne started to feel sad that her bunny didn’t have a companion. She met with Lemaire and “she taught me everything about rabbits.”

Eventually, Horne was able to go through Lemaire’s adoption process, and she adopted another bunny to bond with her first one. 

“I actually liked when she came to my house because she was able to look at things and give me ideas,” Horne said. “It was like having this expert hold my hand through a brand new animal I knew nothing about.”

James Horne, Cissy Horne’s son, also now volunteers with Napa Bunnies. He said he goes over to Lemaire’s house every Saturday to socialize with the bunnies, change litter boxes, and weigh them, among other activities. And at the end of April, he accompanied a rabbit his family is fostering known as Topaz to the Pet Food Express adoption event.

Horne added that he has a ton of fun taking care of the bunnies, and that he’s learned a ton.

“It’s kind of been a passion of mine to be around animals,” Horne said. “Napa Bunnies has given me the perfect opportunity to just be around bunnies nonstop and continue to learn about them. Which I always find intriguing, interesting and fun.”

Horne said Napa Bunnies, as an organization, clearly makes constant efforts to teach people about how to properly care for rabbits — including that they’re social animals that need interaction, and that they mostly prefer green vegetables.  

“It’s obviously not just, ‘throw a carrot at them every day,’” Horne said. “Just like any other pet it takes a lot of time and effort to take care of them and make sure you’re doing everything right for the animal so they don’t end up sick or they’re not eating right or they end up drinking right or they’re lonely. From my experience with Napa Bunnies, they do go into really good detail about these kinds of things.”

Lemaire herself hasn’t always owned pet rabbits, though by now she’s owned them for over three decades. Her first rabbit — named Coco, after Coco Chanel — was her then-boyfriend’s idea when they lived in a small Paris apartment. Coco came along with Lemaire when she moved to the United States — by then Coco was a family member, and he lived a long, happy life.

“I think it was just like, they stole my heart,” Lemaire said. “And the more you learn about them. I mean, rabbits are the most exploited animals on the planet. I think that’s what drove me to advocate for them. And they’re silent, right. So just imagine if they were in a backyard hutch and they would meow or bark like a dog or a cat. But they make no noise, so they don’t have a voice. So I think it’s kind of the underdog thing. And once you do gain their trust, it’s magical.”

For more information, visit napabunnies.org or email [email protected].