Okay, I’m getting desperate.  Last week I blogged about my rabbit problem. Here’s what’s happened since then. 

I brought, Bodey, the neighbor’s dog, over to my yard. Or rather the neighbor’s son, who plays with my son brought him over. As I suspected, foreign territory does not make for a good aggressor. Bodey stood by the gate leading away from our yard to the comfort of his well-worn turf and refused to budge. Finally, my son yelled to me, "Mom, the dog thing isn’t working!" Okay, time to put plan B into action….

I called an animal control company that advertised expertise in getting rid of raccoons and squirrels. They also promised to be humane, relocating animals instead of killing them.  Hey, this is Boulder County, home to the "prairie dogs are our friends" movement. 

A woman with a friendly voice answered. I asked if they dealt with rabbits. Yes, they did. And then she went on to say:

"Oh, it’s a common problem this time of the year, after the females have their babies. You probably have a colony of rabbits, anywhere from 2-8 rabbits. It’s just that you don’t see them together."

They’re rascally, alright.  They must line up at the edge of my dogwood bushes, their home for now, taking numbers to see who gets to go out into the yard and aggravate me. I can hear them now, "Okay, Joe, it’s your turn to make the lady on the patio run after you."

The woman went on to describe their process for getting rid of rabbits: "We use live animal traps and check the traps for seven days. We then transport them at least five miles away. Rabbits are territorial. They’ll come right back if you don’t move them far enough away. After seven days of checking the trap, we spray the perimeter of your property with coyote urine. Rabbits hate that. It repels them."

Yeah that would repel me, too.  But the real kicker was when she said, "And all that costs $399."  Say what? 400 smackeroos to entice bunnies into a cage with nice foods to eat and give them a free ride to my local hiking trail?  Uh, yeah, let’s reconsider that humane thing.  My brother lives nearby and he has the same rabbit problem. He’s been considering a BB gun. Maybe he’d come over for 100 bucks. Great. My brother can become known as a bunny mercenary.

I’m no dummy. I find out that Home Depot sells live animal traps for $35.  You can use them more than once. I bought one and quickly enlisted my sons to help me set and check the traps.  We tried carrots on the first day. Nothing. I was sure we would get a rabbit on the second day. Again, nothing. That is, besides a stray croquet ball hit by one of my son’s friends during a friendly game.

Yesterday, I noticed that one of my roses that had been on the verge of blooming was no longer on the bush.  Where there had been a light peach blossom, there was a clipped stem. Only the torn remnant of a petal remained. I hope the rabbit got indigestion half-way through its meal. This was getting personal. 

My sons and I moved the trap next to the rose bushes and put an apple slice in to entice. The apple is untouched and looks brown now.  The carrot looks even worse. My sister-in-law tells me that the traps are useless once there’s so much greenery in the yard.  Why settle for melba toast when there’s a buffet down the hall? 

Now that I’m writing this, I think I’ll try putting a rose in the trap. Two engineering degrees and I still haven’t figured out how to outsmart some dumb bunnies….