Hagrid Panel

 

A page from my sketch book.

Hagrid Panel

Hagrid is our Bearded Dragon, which we have had for just over five years now.

LG

Binkies and Zoomies

 

I walked up stairs to give Kenji some hay  as I do  in the mornings before I go to work.  

Kenji sees me and hops quickly over to say "Hi"and give a cute look. I take out some hay. 

He is excited and does a circle and does a binky.

He can jump up quick, all four feet off the floor for a moment.  It's called a binky.  

Rabbits will do this move when they  are excited. 

Rabbits have powerful back legs.

He zooms around when he has a bit of energy.

One of my favorite moments:

We went up stairs to feed Kenji a banana.  He loves bananas.

He had been in his cardboard box tunnels.

He must of smelled the banana and was  excited He  zoomed out of the box with such speed his ruff of mane like hair was lifted up and out as he came out of the box opening. 

It reminded me of those salon commercial where the model's hair is blown back for emphasis. 

J

Can't Touch This

Our rabbit Kenji is very fluffy and cute.  Almost like a stuffed animal, but very Alive.

Looking at him, you just want to reach out and hold him and hug him.  Yet Kenji has other ideas than being hugged.  He'll move away.  "nope,  Can't Touch this."

He does like to play and hop around a lot. Lots of energy.

When our bearded dragon, Hagrid, has energy she doesn't want to be held either.  Go, go, go.  

Yet because she's a reptile her body will cool down and she will slow down.     It is then that she likes to be very close to warmth.  She  is very happy when we share our warmth with her.  She'll lay on us for warmth and comfort for a time.  

It's sort of interesting: 

The fluffy cute rabbit wants private space to himself  

The scaly reptile wants to enjoy close time with us for warmth. 

All Kinds in this world.

Here's a pic of Hagrid resting on me. She relaxes and closes her eyes as she feels my warmth.

And here's our sassy sweet Kenji on his tunnel boxes.

How About Them Apples

When watching Kenji eat,  we'd notice that he takes little bites.

I cored an apple, peeled it and cut it up in small pieces

Then I brought it to him on a paper plate.

Not every piece was the same size.  Some were smaller than others.  

Well, Kenji looked it over.  Then he went and grabbed the biggest piece on the plate.

Since then I don't bother cutting apples up in small pieces.

Nail Clipping

 

Clipping our pets nails is an important part of pet care.

It can take practice to get it done.

When I first attempted to clip Kenji's nails, he zipped away.  My daughters would try to hold him. Yet it was still challenging.  Kenji seemed to find a way out.   

I asked the vet about how to hold and cut his nails.  She demonstrated that he tends to need to be held like a football.  

OK 

Yesterday I bought a new pair of nail clippers, because I couldn't find the one we had. 

Supplied with new nail clippers, a banana (his favorite treat) and towel, my daughter and I went to it. Kenji was held in a football hold, while I clipped each paws nails carefully.

He was happy with his reward treat.

Hagrid gets her nails clipped too.  

She, being the Queen of chill, wasn't initially hard to work with.  

Yet she would shake her hand after having her nails cut. Her way of letting us know she didn't care for it.  

Hagrid gets exercise

 

Hagrid warms up on her rock hill in her enclosure.  

When she's warmed she gets taken out for a time.  

When she's light colored her body is warmed up.  She now has a lot of energy to move.

She gets excited as we carry her out to the living room.  She sometimes gets impatient and wants to go down.  

She is placed on the floor.  And zoom...she's off running around.  "Beardie on the Loose"

She runs through the living room.  Then runs into the kitchen.  

She turns and heads to the bathroom.  Then out across the living room again.  

She also loves climbing.  She discovered she can climb up the heater cover near the front windows.  From there she can look outside the windows, which she enjoys doing.  Her skill of climbing has improved and she climbs up with ease.

She seems proud.  She stands in a proud stance and gazes out the window.  She's guarding her territory.  

                                                Here's a pic of him looking out the window.

Here's a video of Hagrid running in the living room.

Water, please. TY

Kenji enjoys his upstairs "pad" with Emily.  

He is a free roaming bunny.  

He has:

a place to go-to-the bathroom 

a food place and water dish

 towels, pillows, rugs

a tunnel to run through and boxes 

He's a happy bunny.    

He gets checked on throughout the day.   

As far as roles, I seemed to have taken on cleaning his water dish and refilling it. And he knows it.

I know he knows it because when he wants/needs more water, he looks at me and then the water dish.

"Water, please, TY"

I pick up bowl and go down to clean it.  

He sits in a spot and waits for me to come back.  

I come back and fill it.  

He gets excited and does his zoomies (hopping around in circles) and then nuzzle me (TY)

Kenji's Gotcha Anniversary

 Jan 9, 2021

That morning we put together the cage.  Later that afternoon my daughter and her friend placed the cage in the back seat of the car and drove to the house to pick up her new 6-7 week old rabbit.

They brought him home. They carried in the cage with this small fluff ball of a bunny.  He was so small and cute.

We open the cage door.  It took a while for him to get comfortable enough to come out, yet he did.

My daughter and her friend came up with his name, Kenji.

Jan 9, 2022

It's been a year now since that first day. We celebrated his "Gotcha Home Coming" day by treating him to his favorite treat, a Banana and sitting with him and praising him.  

It's been an experience having a rabbit to care for and there have been many joys.  Lots of learning and engaging.  

Love

Curtains

 

My oldest daughter was changing up her room.  She moved some things around to suit her better.  She added a couple of new items.  One of the items was a set of new curtains.  

I helped her put up the new curtains.  

The curtains were full length curtains and would touch the floor.  I brought up a long curtain rod.  

Kenji's enclosure is in front of the window.  In order to put the curtains up we had to move his cage forward. 

Kenji seemed uncomfortable about the cage being moved.  Yet watched to see what was next.  

We moved the cage a few inches from in front of the window.  

I then laid out the long curtains to start to pull each one through the curtain rod.  

Kenji saw the curtains and came over to investigate.  He sat by some of the curtains.  

Once I put the curtains on the rod, we put them up.  

Kenji went to the curtains.  He moved through the curtains and then sat admits them. 

Since that day, he has hopped through and slept among the curtains.  

Hagrid: Full Body Portrait

 

Hagrid

Hagrid: Scratch Board In Process 2

 

I scratched out more of the light areas and defined certain areas.  

I added some color.  

She has orange markings on his face.  

Here is a detail on her face.

Hagrid: Scratch Board in progress

 

Hagrid Beardie is quite beautiful. She has the well known feature of spikes scales on her beard area and around the back sides of her head.  The spiky scales are on her sides too.

Her face has orange, and then there are black areas and light orangey brown area down her back.

I thought it would be good to do a scratch board portrait of her.  

I started the other night, to scratch out the light areas.  

I plan to add color.  

Here is what I did the other night.

In progress.

Hagrid Growing and Shedding

Hagrid is happily in her new larger enclosure.  

Hagrid is showing signs of growing.

Like snakes, a new layer of growth and skin pushes the older skin away.  The old scales dry out and fall away. 

At different points, the scales can come off as little pieces that remind one of dandruff. At other times, the scales can come of as fuller pieces of skin.  

One day we notices a piece of skin that had pulled away from her arm.  The piece of scale skin matched her upper arm, elbow and part of her lower arm.  

Another time, we noticed her eye was looking bulgy.  The scales had pulled away.  The old scales looked like the area around his eye.

Hagrid's old scaly skin.  

Hide and Seek

Children enjoy playing Hide and Seek.  There's mystery and surprise in the game of Hide and Seek.

There are are advantages to the game that are vital to an animal out in the wild.  The instincts are strong in animals.  Hiding to protect oneself.  Hunting for the next meal. It is ingrained in their DNA.

Kenji, a domestic rabbit,  does play Hide and Seek.  He is drawn to places that are like a den.

under the bed

in a box

in a corner

Yet because he has gotten to know us, he does come out to see us.  

I go upstairs and he may or may not be visible.  If I don't see him, I call his name, "Kenji, Kenji bunny".  
I look in the places I know he goes: under the bed, in a box.  

Then suddenly he comes out.  

"There you are."  I say.  

I let him smell my hand and pat him. 

We can be sure he will come out when we have his favorite treat, a banana. 

Hagrid, our Bearded Dragon  is a predatory animal.  

She will move as a predator does like in the wild. She will stay really still and keep low and hide behind a plant or branch to approach her prey, crickets.  Stealth and timing is key.  

Hagrid: Pencil drawing

Hagrid Beardie is about 6-7 months old now.  

I've noticed as she grows that her coloring and patterns on her body are becoming more distinct.  Her features are more prominent.  

When most people think about bearded dragons, they picture a sandy-colored reptile. But many people may be surprised to discover that bearded dragons can come in a variety of different colors, patterns, and something referred to as morphs or mutations.

Hagrid is a Standard morph.  Her face has orange markings.  Her beard area has black lines. And her body has a  a sysmetrical pattern along her back and down her tail.  There are browns, blacks and light color areas on her back.  

Shee has the familiar spikes feature on her beard area and along her sides.  

She is pretty cool to look at.  

I did a pencil drawing of her yesterday while she basked.  

Around the Yard with Kenji

 

At first, Kenji wasn't sure about going outside.  

But once out in the yard he really enjoyed

himself.  

We would follow him with the leash around the yard.  

He would check out things around the yard.  

Rub the short log.

Smell the grass.

Exploring the yard was intermitted with sitting in one spot.  

Under the playset near the old tire.

A dirt mount under a bush. 

Hiding in the leaves at the maple tree.

Spurts of hop hop hopping, covering lots of ground.

Burrowing in the soil.  ( the house sparrows use his little hole in the yard to take a dust bath)

Surveying the area.

Good Morning, Hagrid

 

We would enter our youngest daughter's bedroom to peak in on Hagrid Beardie. 

Hagrid chose to sleep in her cave.  Shee would curl up inside and got to sleep.

In the morning she would come out when she awoke.

One morning, I peaked in the cave to see her just peaking out of his cave.

"Good Morning, Hagrid".  

She would go to the hotter side of her enclosure to warm up.  Once she was warmed up, she was ready for breakfast... of crickets.  

Good Morning, Kenji

 

Our family's routine has changed a little since getting pets.

It has become common for us to go see Kenji Bunny upstairs in my older daughter's bedroom.

The girls liked to have Kenji on the bed to pet and talk to in the morning.  We set up pillows so he could hop up on the bed easier.  

Kenji found pillows very comfy.  

He would sit on one on the bed and let us pet him and say "Hello".   

Beardie: research and reward

 

Our youngest daughter decided she wanted a bearded dragon for a pet.  

There was much research to do about bearded dragon lizards.  

Bearded Dragons are found in Australia.  Yet they are bred in places as the USA.  

Why a breaded dragon? 

Well my daughter has always been fascinated with Mythical creatures.  And likes to draw them.

Dragons are reptilian mythical creatures.  

There are many cultures that have dragons in their lore, or as a symbolic icon, like for example in China.  

My daughter didn't like the stories where dragons were portrayed as evil and sought after to kill.

We found a place in Cumberland, RI that specializes in reptiles, named Sabrina's Reptile Kingdom. The owner of the place talked to us about bearded dragons.  Amanda was to read five reference sheets with information on bearded dragons before purchasing one.  

We needed to know what we were entering into for caring for this reptile.

We read about a bearded dragons needs, care, feeding, etc.

Reptiles are cold blooded and need an external source for heat.  We would need heat lamps to regulate the temperature in the enclosure.  They need a spot to bask and then a place to go when it doesn't need the extreme heat.  

They eat live crickets and certain vegetables.

We had to look for a 20 gallon tank to start with a young bearded dragon.

We also needed a place to put the live crickets.

We slowly started to find the items we needed: the 20 gallon tank, lamps, accessories for the tank to create an environment for the bearded dragon. 

And a cricket keeper to have a place for the crickets to live.  

One day I took Amanda to the Reptile Kingdom and we bought a young beardie.  

("beardie" is the shortened name for them)

We settled her into her new home. 

Baby Bunny: Inside and 0ut

 

While it was still winter, we introduces Kenji to different rooms in the house:  

The Living room

Our youngest daughters bedroom 

Our bedroom

He liked to explore the bed's soft blankets and lay down.  He would sometimes do burrowing on the blanket.  Then settle to rest in a spot.

Once on the floor he'd go under beds, zooming in and out.  He was using those long back legs to move. "And Boy, Could he move."  

We set up pillows and cushions so he could climb up on the couch or a bed.  He was excited to explore.

Once the weather warmed up we decided to introduce him to our yard outside.  

The first harness leash we got was soft rope.  

He wasn't so sure about it at first.  

Rabbits do not like being picked up really.  

Even when we got it on him, he managed to get out of it.  

We order a different harness leash that had Velcro and a click.  We did eventually get that harness leash on.  The smoother and faster we did it the more he was able to be OK with it.  

Then we opened the door.  As with any new thing, he hesitated.  We placed him in his carrier and carried him outside.  We unzipped the carrier bag.  He came out slowly to explore.  He would venture out farther and farther around the yard.  

The small garden plot

The longer garden plot

The playset

We noticed he would mark things with his outer cheek.  

A Branch

A small log

An old tire

The Maple tree: touched with a foot

His walks in the yard consist of stop, look, surge ahead hopping.  Then stop again. Sit for a time.  He  could sit for 5-10-15 minutes.  Look around, then clean himself.

He noted dogs barking behind the fence.  When he moved to the front of our house, he noted cars going by.  At first he bound off and we'd steer him to the back yard.  Yet he started to become accustom to cars going by...he would flatten himself until it was gone.  

We try to mostly stay in the back yard.  

He found a small dirt pile near a bush he likes to sit on.  He marks things around the yard.  

He did do a little burrowing in the dirt in the yard, but nothing to be concerned about.  

He likes the bushes too, for he feels safe there.