WHITE ROCK, B.C. - Before she started walking with a bunny in her backpack, Armida Ortega was hoping to find the perfect pup.
“(But one) is too big, is too small, is too old,” Arimda says of her search at local animal shelters. “And we never got a dog.”
And never considered a bunny because they were too timid, until she happened upon Toffee.
“Every time we approached the cage she came (close),” Armida smiles. “And she’s like, ‘Pick me! Pick me!’”
So Armida picked the rescued rabbit up, and quickly realized she never wanted to let Toffee go.
“She was so happy,” Armida says. “And I was so happy because I can play with the bunny.”
While Toffee is playful, when Armida brought her home, she discovered the bunny is also headstrong and nicknamed her Cleopatra.
“She makes a face,” Armida shows how the bunny raises her head in the air and stretches her arms and legs out as far as they can go. “And I open the door and she’s there in the bed like she owns the bed.”
When she wasn’t reigning over the dining room rug too, or claiming the carpet while watching TV, Toffee seemed increasingly curious about expanding her territory outside.
“She gets very excited,” Armida says. “And I open the door and she just runs outside to the garden.”
Toffee liked it so much, Armida started buying clothes to keep the bunny warm no matter the weather, which inspired her husband to build a mini wardrobe to organize a collection of outfits for all sorts of occasions.
“These are for Halloween, Christmas,” Armida says, pointing out each outfit. “Monarch butterfly wings, Ukraine colours.”
Although when Armida started carrying Toffee further afield, like to the nearby beach, the bunny would simply wear her birthday suit, before stretching her arms and legs out like a sovereign of sand.
“And that’s when I say, ‘We should buy a backpack.’”
Armida says it took the bunny a couple days to get comfortable with the backpack and start jumping into it on her own. But now that she does, they go for walks together, where Toffee Cleopatra finds patches of grass to preside, and people walking by to inspire.
“You are so cute!” a woman says while focusing her camera on Toffee who’s wearing a red dress.
“She is just absolutely darling,” another person smiles.
“She made me smile,” a senior laughs. “Oh my gosh!”
When Armida is not going for walks with her bunny, she’s volunteering to help other rescued rabbits at a local animal shelter, and posting photos on Toffee Cleopatra’s Instagram page.
Armida says she feels grateful every day that instead of finding the dog she thought she wanted, she discovered the adventurous rabbit she really needed.
