In which the rabbit is just as horny as ever

It's been a couple weeks, and Pipkin still hasn't been neutered. Nor has his obsession with the female Pepper waned. We often hear his soft grunting song of yearning, as he hops around sniffing all the places that Pepper has touched. He has hopped into my lap of his own accord more than once--after I had held Pepper and thus scented myself with her irresistible perfume.

Pepper, for her part, is growing up fast. She hops in and out of her cage now, and doesn't slide around so much when we put her on the tiled bathroom floor. Even more impressively, she is now as big as Pipkin, and will surpass him soon, I'm sure. (Before we went to California, we weighed her: 900g. Ten days later, we returned and were shocked to see how much bigger she had gotten: she weighs 1200g.)

Now that Pepper is spending a lot of her time out of her cage on the roof of Pipkin's crate, like so--

--Pipkin is spending a lot of his time in his crate (which we have outfitted with a loft). He doesn't nap on the rug anymore. He hangs out on the upper story of his crate and pines after Pepper, standing up and straining to touch his nose to the edge of the ceiling. He also likes to stand on the bucket and stare at her. She usually ignores him.

Poor Pipkin. He seems to be going crazy with frustration. And so I am learning a lesson from my rabbits. Here for the first time, I see sexual desire in its unvarnished biological form. Pipkin is obsessed, no doubt about it. He is a man on a mission, as O. put it. And the mission is: get to Pepper, and get it on. I am beginning to understand the power of the sex drive. For Pipkin, there isn't some overarching narrative of psychological satisfaction or self-actualization to fulfill. It's just the plain biology of the thing, and it's clearly overwhelming to him.

So this is what it's like for boys all the time? Things begin to make more sense...

For Pipkin, though, the solution is going to be abrupt and simple. On Monday, he has an appointment. Snip snip. Until then: