Lately I have been spending an amount of time on petfinder.com roughly equivalent to the amount of time I spend climbing; that is to say, a little too much time. No Mom, no one died, but Scratch is off in picturesque Swanton-by-the-lake, wooing a Flemish Giant who thinks she's a dog, and Neo can stand only so much of these strange humans, and the Princess has gone off and gotten herself a boyfriend.

We have gone from four separate pens scattered around the ground floor of the house to just two, and even though this was only a matter of five rabbits becoming four, it was much much bigger than that. Less food to make, less meals to segregate (chopped food here, whole food here, 1/4 cup pellets over there, free-feed pellets in the next room), less gates to guard, less switching around and monitoring who gets how much time out. The Princess, in a somewhat lengthy but incredibly bloodshed-free process, moved in with Tung-Tung and Albert, who regarded her with resignation and curiosity. In Tung-Tung's case a little too much curiosity about her nether regions, but the Princess has sharp, pointy teeth on the other end and he has no teeth to speak of, so an equilibrium is mostly maintained. Apart from one night last week when I woke up at 3 am to find them being curious four inches from my sleeping head. GAH. Marlon Perkins I am not; I pushed them both off the side of the bed.

But the upshot of this new development is that the Princess rarely spends any time curled up next to me on the bed without her paramour, and I am slightly bummed. My bummingness in no way diminishes the cuteness of the 3 of them sprawling out on the living room rug together, or chasing round the dining room, or stealing each other's blankies and hay, or the constant reciprocal grooming. But I was spoiled having the Princess' undivided attention.

So I'm getting a dog. I've decided. El Yo has decided in the negatory, no dogs no way not happening, but this is only because he has yet to be snorted at by the one true dog who will melt his coal-black heart, I am convinced. I've tried convincing Neo to spend more time hanging out and being petted, loved on, picked up, etc, but he's canonically rabbit and right at the picking up part he's done and out of there. Unlike the Princess, Neo remains solidly conscious of being less than 3lbs of prey in a predator-first world, and can't shake the feeling that we watch all those cooking shows because we're trying to figure out if he'd be better with jalapeno-lime marinade or a blackberry reduction. He has his suspicions.

The thing is, I think about getting a dog all the time. I think about it as much as some people think about babies, or art or digital cameras. I figure that an elderly, toothless super-friendly pup of a recognized non-rabbit-eating breed (beagles, dachsunds, take one step back) would work really well. We could get a pair to keep each other company, someone's home all day, someone else has way too much time to take them for walks or, as is so often the dream of abandoned old dogs everywhere, provide a soft lap in front of a warm stove. With perhaps a pillow or some ground beef. Just the basics ma'am, whatever treats you've got lying around. Or we could get a pup and train them right from the start not to eat the bunnies. Although I'm guessing that one runin with the bitey end of the Princess may be all the training a young dog needs in that arena.

This way the Princess can go off and roam with her herd, Neo doesn't have to pretend to enjoy watching Top Chef and El Yo no longer has to open emails filled with links to adorable contenders. What could possibly go wrong?