Angus spent most of July lying on the living room floor under the ceiling fan. Sometimes he'd come out onto the front porch, where I had set up my home office, and fall asleep on the couch. He had no desire to go out into the yard. He hates hot weather and prefers to sleep through it.
And then the bunnies arrived.
The first day, a Monday, there were two of them, one slightly bigger than the other but both so tiny I could easily have tucked them into my pocket. They emerged from the garden on the south side of the house — the slightly larger one, all gray, came out of the asters on one side of the path, and the smaller one, which had a white blaze on its nose (just like Angus!) crept out from the phlox and bee balm on the other side.
They both started nibbling the creeping thyme that grows between the flagstones.
Angus was enthralled. He sat bolt upright on the porch couch and stared through the screen window. When the bunnies moved out of sight, he ran to the dining room window and watched from there.
The next day, the slightly bigger bunny was gone. I don't know if it moved on or got eaten, and I don't want to know. But the little one with the white blaze on its nose was still there. Angus spent that day, too, at the window.
And the next day, and the next, and the next.
The bunny — who by then we had taken to calling Louie — sampled just about everything in our garden. It discovered it liked asters, and it nibbled the leaves all the way up several stems, which made them look like spent ears of corn. Then it moved on to the cone flowers and the delphiniums. (No, Louie! Not the delphiniums!)
Angus watched in absolute silence. He seemed enthralled. What will Louie eat next?
Liatris, apparently. Boom! Down went one of the purple blazing stars, felled like a tree. Louie started chewing before it even hit the ground.
As long as Louie stayed in the side yard, he was safe from the dogs, and as long as he stayed out of the delphiniums he was safe from me. But I worried that if he ducked under the fence into the backyard, we'd be in trouble. The backyard is where the dogs roam free.
And sure enough, after a few days I spotted Louie in the backyard, hanging out in the Joe Pye weed and lantana. I watched him groom himself, cleaning between the toes of his back feet one by one, and then rubbing his little paws all over his face, like a guy waking up. Then he toppled over into the dirt and fell asleep.
This was not good. He was in Dog Territory. I had two options — get Louie back to the side yard, or keep Angus and Rosie in the house forever.
So I climbed into the Joe Pye weed and shooed him back under the fence, and then I went into the side garden and shooed him away from the delphiniums.
After a while, I looked up from my computer to see Angus at the window, nose quivering, and I knew that Louie had emerged for another snack.
Louie grew on me. He was tiny, he was cute, he kept Angus entertained for hours. I did worry about what would happen when he got big and morphed from bunny to rabbit — would Angus continue to adore him, or would he start barking at him? Would I have any flowers left at all?
I needn't have worried, though. Louie did not stick around. He only stayed for a couple of weeks.
One of the last times I saw him, he was running at top speed, a comical sight for something so tiny and round — a billiard ball with fur. He had sneaked into the backyard again and had decided to nap in the dirt under the bridal veil bush. This is a place that has been known, for generations of dogs, as the Dog Clubhouse, and Angus and Rosie were not happy to find him there.
I watched as they charged the Clubhouse and Louie spurted out, zipped through the Joe Pye weed, dashed under the fence, and found refuge in the asters. Whew! Tragedy averted.
The next morning, he was gone. I spent quite a bit of time looking for him, checking all of his favorite spots throughout the day — under the viburnum, underneath our metal garden goat, in the corner over by the hose caddy. But I already knew the search was futile.
How? Because Angus was no longer showing any interest in the window. Instead, he was back on the living room floor sprawled under the ceiling fan, sleeping away the rest of July. Our delphiniums, by the way, are looking great.
Laurie Hertzel is the Star Tribune's books editor. She has been chronicling the life of her rescue pup, Angus, since he was about 3 months old. Read all the stories at startribune.com/puppy.
