by Dennis Dalman
editor@thenewsleaders.com
Unfortunately, for someone passionate about animals, Kiahna Hubert of Sartell is allergic to cats, but that’s OK because instead of a cat or a dog, the teen has a bunny rabbit as a house pet.
And she’s wild about her lop-eared bunny, Otis, who is not only sweet and affectionate but who is a natural-born entertainer who elicits lots of laughter and delight through his bunny antics, such as leaping up from the couch and running backwards.
Hubert is the assistant manager of the Sartell Dollar Tree store and is also a first-year student at St. Cloud Technical and Community College, doing her general-education credits. She lives in an apartment in Sartell. The smaller quarters eliminate some pet options. She won’t have a dog because she is a firm believer that every dog, no matter how small, must have outdoor romping room at least once daily. She can’t have cats because of her allergy.
Her only choice, at least for now, is small animals suited for apartments, so Otis fits the bill. Otis is a white rabbit with large brown patches and floppy ears.
Hubert has done foster-care volunteer work for the Tri-County Humane Society, which is where she got Otis. She’d been searching the TCHS website for weeks when, one day, she saw a neutered-male lop-eared rabbit. It was love at first sight. She adopted the bunny, which she called Otis after the popular movie Milo and Otis.
“He’s almost 1-year-old now,” Hubert said. “He is 100-percent litter-box trained. And he pretty much runs this apartment. He has full run of it during the day. At night, I put him in a pen to sleep, so he can’t get into mischief. But during the day, when he’s tired, he loves to sleep on my bed.”
He also loves to run back and forth on the couch, hopping, jumping, leaping in a frenzy, going generally crazy in the most comical ways.
“He’s a little trickster,” she said. “And he’s so affectionate. When he sees me wiggle my fingers, he hops over and nudges my hand, so that I pet him. He just loves to snuggle up.”
Otis eats the finest brands of hay and grains each day, with vegetables in the morning and evening, with occasional servings of fruit. He likes carrots, as bunnies do, but she limits his carrot treats since they are high in sugar. She gives him lots of romaine lettuce, kale and other dark lettuces. He also loves cucumber chunks.
Foster care
As a foster-care volunteer for the TCHS, Hubert is on a waiting list to help small animals other than dogs or cats, ones that she can handle in her apartment: hamsters, guinea pigs, snakes, lizards and so on. Currently, she is caring for none, but she has no doubt one will come along soon. Her task as a foster-care “parent” is to give the pets special attention, to introduce them to socialization around people and to see they get any veterinary care they may need. Eventually, then, each animal is adopted with an owner that matches the pet.
‘Easter bunnies’
Easter time, for an unfortunate reason, is when rabbits start showing up at the TCHS in St. Cloud.
Hubert explained: While it’s fortunate people turn in the rabbits out of concern, it’s unfortunate because some parents, to delight their children as Easter approaches, buy them cute little Easter bunnies – real ones. Within weeks, the cute little bunnies aren’t so “cute” anymore. They become serious responsibilities for the parents and the children. And then, one sad day, the once-cute “Easter bunny” has to go. Sometimes to the humane society from which, hopefully, some kind and loving person, like Hubert, will adopt it.
Horses
Although Hubert loves any and all animals, her favorites are horses – especially her former male Arabian horse she named “Wild Thing.”
Born in Hawaii, Hubert is the daughter of a military man who had to move from place to place quite often because of his military assignments. When they lived in Colorado Springs, Colo., Hubert volunteered to work with a horse-rescue organization for four years. The organization members would rescue horses that had been neglected, abused or abandoned and then nurture them back to health. That is where she met Wild Thing.
“He was so abused and neglected,” Hubert recalled. “His owners were terrible, and that is the only word I can use about them.”
Hubert and Wild Thing were inseparable companions. When she and her family moved to Sartell almost three years ago, she brought Wild Thing with her. Sad to say, a horse cannot stay in an apartment, and so Hubert looked long and hard for the “perfect” owners for her beloved Wild Thing, who is now almost 19 years old. Finally, she found an ideal family near Foley with three daughters who adore their new horse.
It is a thrill for Hubert and for Wild Thing, who goes wild with joy when he sees Hubert return to visit him. She works quite often with Wild Thing to calm him down as he has yet to get used to his new surroundings. It’s working out just fine, she noted with satisfaction.
“Horses are my favorite animals, by far,” she said. “My dream country is a place with lots of horses. Someday, I will get a good trail horse for riding – nothing fancy, just a good trail horse. My significant other, Dylan, is learning to like horses.”
TCHS
Hubert wishes more people would volunteer, as she does, for the Tri-County Humane Society, headquartered in East St. Cloud.
“Their mission is so true,” she said of the TCHS. “They’re there to help animals. They do not care about profits. Their mission is to help fit the right animals with the right people, one to one. They do lots of interviews and follow-ups to make sure the adoptive matches are working out.”
Hubert also appreciates the way the TCHS promotes animal adoption, and spaying and neutering, via the media and many public programs.
“They do everything they possibly can – everything – to avoid having to euthanize an animal, and they have a great record in animal adoptions, something like 94 percent,” she said.
To find out more about adoption, foster-care programs and other volunteer tasks, contact the humane society at tricountyhumanesociety.org.
Otis the bunny loves to romp, hop and leap on the couch in Kiahna Hubert’s apartment. Hubert said Otis is a very affectionate and very comical little trickster of a pet.
Although she has a passion for all animals, Kiahna Hubert has a special love for her Arabian horse, “Wild Thing,” which was once neglected and abused until Hubert, with great patience, training and love, restored his trust in people.
