Treat Tales -- Meeting The Rabbit

It's been a while since I wrote a Treat Tale, but a friend had asked me to back in October on our trip, and others mentioned it when they read about Treat on Saturday, so I thought it was time to get back into the swing of telling those stories.  We'd like to dedicate this story to our friend Max, who recently crossed to the Rainbow Bridge after a brief battle with Osteosarcoma.  He was one handsome Greyhound and he will be missed.  We decided to write this particular story after several people asked about people saw the picture on Saturday of Treat with the rabbit. 

The rabbit's name was Diamond.  She was the classroom rabbit in my class at school.  Normally, she would stay at school during the week and then go home with my teaching partner on the weekends.  However, there came a long five day weekend when we were off school because of a big conference that many of the teachers attended.  My teaching partner was going to the conference, so we planned for Diamond to come home with me over the long weekend.

I had big dreams.  There's a calendar that comes out every year called the Celebrating Greyhounds Calendar.  It's put out by the same organization that puts out the Celebrating Greyhounds magazine.  Every year people from all over send in their best pictures of their Greyhounds in hopes of getting a picture in the calendar.  I just knew that if I could get a picture of Treat with the rabbit that it would be calendar gold.  I mean, really, who could resist a Greyhound curled up with a fuzzy bunny?  It was practically a guarantee in my mind.

The day arrived when it was time to bring Diamond home.  She rode in a cat carrier and spent most of her time in a small cage.  I carried the cage inside first and Treat and Hawk along with our two cats were fascinated by it.  After I got the cage set up in the corner of the living room, I set up her hay, pellets and water, then I went outside to fetch the rabbit.  I was greeted at the back door by Treat and Hawk whose noses had gone into complete overdrive.  Hawk's eyes telescoped out like a cartoon character, his nose twitched, his ears flattened to the back of his head and he turned and beat feet into the living room as far as he could get from the little beast.  Treat turned from her sniff fest to see him leaving and followed him to curl up primly on the couch.  They both looked at me with the same look of horror that seemed to say "I can't believe you brought a wild animal into our house!  What were you thinking?"  The cats surrounded the cage and were drooling as they seemed to be preparing for the buffet.

I was not deterred from my goal, however.  After things got settled, I closed the cats in the bedroom and lifted Diamond out of her cage, carefully carrying her to the couch to sit her down beside Treat.  Treat launched off the couch as if her tail was on fire.  She had no intention of posing with a wild animal.  There was probably some fine print in her adoption contract that prohibited getting wild animals within a certain vicinty of her royal self, but I must have missed it amongst all the other requirements of life with a Greyhound princess.

A few days later, I decided to try again.  After a long walk, I got Treat settled on the couch and Mr. Taleteller was standing nearby with the camera ready.  We cajoled and encouraged her, and finally got the picture of Treat sitting on the couch with the rabbit moments before she took off to hide in the bedroom.  I have to admit, I've always loved that picture.

We did submit it to the calendar, but it was never chosen.  As a matter of fact, the next year a picture I'd taken of Hawk was selected, one that had nothing to do with the princess.  I'm sure she's sitting on a cloud somewhere with that rabbit still, laughing about me and my folly.  I guess some things seem a lot better in your mind than they do in application.  I still look back on that picture and smile as I remember all that went into capturing it.

I'd also like to add that this is our five hundredth post.  It's been a lot of fun keeping the blog going so far.  To celebrate, we're asking you to join us on our new blog.  We are still working out a few kinks, but by the beginning of the month, we hope to be exclusively posting on our new blog site.  It's a little scary to make the move, but we've been encouraged by some good friends to do it, and we feel like it's a good thing for us.  We're mostly hoping that you all will still follow us and will join us on the new site.  So, without further ado, we present Tales and Tails.  If you'd like to bookmark it, it's http://talesandtails.com/.