Winkle and the Magic Bunny
One sunny day last spring, I let my dogs out into the backyard to get their exercise and do their business as usual. When I called them back in, my 12 year old Dachshund, Winkle came running up to the door carrying something in his mouth. He seemed very pleased with himself, and, as is often is the case with for the little dog in the big dog house, very possessive of his prize.
I saw the grey fur, and my first thoughts were: mouse. We keep a casual tally of which of our four-legged ‘kids’ has caught the most mice, and the dogs are definitely putting the cats to shame. But Winkle had never entered that contest. We had taken him to an Earth Dog training competition when he was young, and while he loved the tunnels, he showed no interest at all at the rat in a cage at the end of the tunnel. The instructor advised us that he lacked the natural dachshund instinct for live prey, and we should probably give up thoughts of Earth Dog trials.
Well, despite what Winkle may have thought, he was not going to be allowed to bring a mouse into the house. I put the other dogs inside, grimaced at the task I had to do, and went to separate Winkle from his furry friend.
It turned out not to be a mouse, but a baby bunny. And I was saddened that Winkle had never gotten the hang of the command “drop it”. Lets face it, he had never gotten the hang of the command “sit”, and “drop it” is a fair bit beyond that. Even worse, I discovered that he’s a cheat when it comes to playing the game of “I’ll swap my tasty pupperoni for your bunny”. He ended up with both.
Instead of the heroic mouse hunter, he became the evil bunny murderer.
Six months later, I was Christmas shopping for the ‘kids’ at their favorite shop, and I saw this adorable stuffed bunny. The dogs have never had soft toys, our older Corgi Gwennie, no longer with us, had discovered at an early age that the object of this game was seeing how fast she could remove the squeaker from the toy, and our boy Cyr has an obsession for paper and cloth that would have him swallowing them before you could blink. But Cyr has gotten older and mostly sleeps now, and I figured this was a good humorous gift that would be ok for a brief bit of supervised play time, once or twice.
When we opened the package, Winkle became instantly enamored of this gift. Far more than his sweater (can’t really blame him there), or the tasty treats. He grabbed it, ran to the pillow and started this game of bark at it, push it away, then leap back onto it. Digging digging digging at the pillow, pounce! And maybe he could even make it squeak! It went on for hours and hours. If only his Earth Dog instructor could see him now.
Eventually we took it away from him and put it away someplace safe. But he saw the drawer we put it in, and sat staring at that drawer, until bed time when we took him upstairs. He slept more soundly than he had in a long time, poor little guy must have tired himself out. We thought for sure he would have forgotten about it by morning, but first thing in the morning, he bounded down the stairs to stare at that drawer, with that adorable dachshund face that makes your heart melt.
He wanted that bunny. It was special to him, magical.
That magic bunny met its demise a few days later, when Winkle did walk away from it for a minute, and Cyr got to it, and took off the ears and a foot. But Winkle still wanted it, and so we got him another one, and tried to keep a better eye on him while he had it. I fear for the real bunnies in the yard this spring.
We keep a stockpile now of magical bunnies and their friends the mystical beavers. They don’t last long, even Winkle has started learning to take them apart to get at the fuzzy insides. He knows all our hiding places for them, and uses that big eared forlorn look every opportunity he can to sway our hearts to give him one.
I stitch them back up as best I can, until there’s nothing left to be stitched. Every time I do, I am reminded of my favorite childhood story, The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams.
The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced like the Skin Horse understand all about it.
“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”
“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.
“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”
“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in your joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
“I suppose you are real?” said the Rabbit. And then he wished he had not said it, for he thought the Skin Horse might be sensitive. But the Skin Horse only smiled.
“The Boy’s Uncle made me Real,” he said. “That was a great many years ago; but once you are Real you can’t become unreal again. It lasts for always.”