It's important for their psyche for them to be able to distinguish when they are actively ignoring you from when they're just ignoring you by default.

My cat pays attention when talked to (and generally will come to you). I just hold no illusions that it really has any concept of "name." If coming to a specific noise is a sign of that then millions of cats think their name is "whirrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr"

Boris absolutely knows his name and comes when called, if he is so inclined (which is most of the time when I call, because he's a mama's boy). He actually has quite a vocabulary - including "wet food" and "sink water".

That must get kind of messy after a while.

We want a bunny update and more pictures!

morning bunny hilarity:

let me preface this with:
Those dogs, as hard as they may try are never ever going to catch this rabbit. Its easily 5x smarter than the two of them combined.

that being said...as Im leaving for work this morning, I open the back door to let the two dufus dogs out for their usual morning ritual and Mr bunny is sitting outside the back door munching happily away. The dogs go into "chase ready mode" and are already banging their faces against the back screen to go meet our new resident.

Mr rabbit rather unenthusiastically heads off down one of his now plentiful trails, dogs in what I have to laughingly call "hot persuit". little dog loses sight of him almost immediately as he cant see over the top of the foot tall grass growing back there and wanders back completely satisfied that he's now saved the day from the lepus hoards. the older, taller dog is still hot on the trail. Mr bunny has long since vanished to my eyes and Ripley is off doing the doggie sherlock thing.

I drop Chewy (shorty) off at my resident dog sitters house and as Im leaving, I see Ripley still searching in and around the car the rabbit was last seen headed towards. Ripley goes one way around the car...sure enough, mr bunny pops out the other...dashes behind a tire and waits. this goes on for 5 or 10 min, with Ripley totally oblivious to Mr rabbits gamesmanship.

Finally, like the first one, Ripley saunters off satisfied shes saved the world from the invaders and heads inside for a well deserved nap.

Mr bunny hops back down his trail like he owns the place and goes back to happily munching away at the lawn looking at me as if to say "you didnt really think that'd work, did you?"

yeah...him I like. I feel like I have bugs bunny living at my house with my pair of 4 legged Elmer Fudds.

:rolleyes:

I think you found a name for him. ;)

Bugs.... or.... Waskily. :)

I'd say that was the most surprising thing to learn as a first time rabbit owner...Bugs really does act a lot like a real rabbit!

update:

yesterday, about noon, 3 little girls came knocking at my door.
"mister, have you seen our rabbit? he ran away and people say they see him, but we cant catch him"

sure enough. they described him to a tee, right down to the yellow ears and spots on his back.
I told them that hes still around and has been happily eating my grass for over a week. I also assured the one little girl that no, my dogs wouldnt eat him. theyre too old, slow and stupid to catch him. they were happy to hear that.

his name is Halo