Saving Rosetta

                                                                         Saving Rosetta

I grew up in the city.  We didn’t see many animals outside of the neighbors pet dogs and cats, squirrels in the park and an occasional visit to the Bronx Zoo.  So I didn’t develop much of a feeling for animals.  My wife, however, was from a rural area and loves all things living.  This is just so you have some understanding of what I am about to present here.

We were watching television on the flat screen shortly after New Year’’s day when we heard a thumping.  Joyce thought it was ice falling against the house.  I had more sinister thoughts.  We located the source on the disturbance at the egress window of the basement room.  The house has no door to the outside from the lowest level. The window would be our exit in case of a fire.  A large rabbit had fallen in the well which is covered by a removeable plastic dome.  The well is four feet deep from the outside.  The beast was frantically trying to escape.  There was no way it could get out; nor could we reach it.  Joyce ran out and tried to remove the dome cover but it was frozen shut.  It was the coldest night in about twenty years and about seven inches of snow lay on thje ground.  “Leave it, we’ll try in the morning when it is light,”  I advised, comfortably snuggled under a down blanket.  “It will freeze to death out there,” she exploded,” in an irritated voice.  “Give me your comforter!”  I know better than to protest when Joyce uses that tone of voice.  She ran out again and tossed my favorite TV watching blanket down the hole.  “That should help it survive the night,” she explained.  Joyce was up all night checking on the furry creature whom she now assumed responsibility for saving.  I slept all right, considering that she kept hopping out of bed.

“She’s still alive,” Joyce reported in the morning.”  “How do you know it’s a she?”   “She gets things done and never complains.  Her name is Rosetta.”  

Joyce was up at 5:00 AM.  At 7:00 she had jumped down the hole, wrapped Rosetta in the comforter and brought her inside.  She placed the rabbit, a large, hairy rodent, in a plastic tub and given her a cup of water and some carrots, which Rosetta, breathing but immobile, would not touch.  She looked half dead.  At 10:00 Joyce  had called the local vet, who begged off since she had just had surgery.  Most vets will not treat wild animals. She did provide the number of a wild animal shelter.  The shelter doc praised Joyce for her compassion and offered to take the animal.  However, she was now treating a very sick dog who was lethargic and paralyzed.  Joyce, who knows about such things, suggested that the dog had licked antifreeze.  The vet checked the dog’s breath and found that, indeed, she reeked of antifreeze.  The shelter was about an hour and a half away and the roads were treacherous.  Our driveway was a skating rink. so the rabbit was ours for a while longer.  Joyce placed a heating pad over the comforter and succeeded in warming Rosetta.  “How did you diagnose the dog?” I inquired.  “It’s that time of year.”

Wild animals cannot be domesticated.  Rosetta seemed confused and in shock, lying motionless in her box.  She would neither eat nor drink on her own. Joyce managed to get some water into her using a syringe.  Then Joyce had an epiphany.  “She wants to be left alone.” She rerleased Rosetta from the box and placed her in the laundry room.  Rosetta, now undisturbed by unfamiliar humans,  perked up and began hopping arounnd.  Joyce hung some maple syrup on the  tub and Rosetta took a lick.  We called the shelter once more.  “Let her go,” Joyce  was advised.  “She’ll die in captivity.”  When the sun came out Joyce walked up the snow covered hill and released her at the edge of the woods.  Like Pi in the film, Rosetta never looked back.  Hopefuly,l she was able to find her den.  “Don’t follow her” the vet had said “or she will not go to her den.”

Joyce is proud to have saved Rosetta but also sad. Me?  I guess I’ll miss her too. Anyway, I’ve got my blanket back.

***

Addenda

I doubt that we’ll ever see Rosetta again.  If rabbuts have some way of communicating with each other, Rosetta had some story to tell”

“I fell into trap and was capturfed by humans.  They manhandled me, placed me in a box, and force fed me.  Fortunately, I managed to escape.  I’ll never go near that place again.”