“She came up and asked me to pet her.”
A few years ago, a woman named Mathilda was at a local lake when she spotted a ball of fur rolling in the dirt.
Getting a closer look, Mathilda realized the animal was a rabbit, and she was lonely.
“She came up and asked me to pet her,” Mathilda said in a video for The Dodo.
Given the bunny’s comfort around people, Mathilda figured her new friend was a domestic pet who’d been dumped in the wild. Anxious for the bunny, Mathilda scooped her up and brought her home.
Safe inside, the rabbit happily munched on carrots and lettuce.
“We could tell she was really hungry,” Mathilda said.
Mathilda took the bunny to a veterinarian and confirmed she didn’t have a microchip. The animal lover knew what she had to do — she named the rabbit Bun Bun and gave her a permanent home.
Later, Mathilda began noticing Bun Bun acting strangely.
“She started ripping out fabric, nesting a lot, gaining a lot of weight,” Mathilda said.
At first, Mathilda assumed she was feeding Bun Bun too much. Then she realized the truth.
“The next thing I knew, I just saw three little feet popping up from underneath her belly,” Mathilda said.
Bun Bun had been pregnant the whole time. And now she was the doting mother of three baby rabbits.
“I felt so proud,” Mathilda said. “I was really happy just looking at them.”
Mathilda watched as the babies transformed from tiny pink blobs to furry micro-rabbits. All the while, she fell in love with them more and more.
“As they grew older, their personalities started showing,” Mathilda said.
These days, all the bunnies still live happily with Mathilda. Though four pets is much more than she bargained for, Mathilda wouldn’t change a thing.
“Having these bunnies in my life has made me want to foster more rescue bunnies in the future,” Mathilda said. “And even start a rescue.”