Issue link: http://southshoremagazine.uberflip.com/i/880055
12 When my three daughters were younger, they all begged for a pet bunny. Day in and day out. "Listen, Mommy, we really, really want a bunny." They nagged me about bunnies so much that I had a recurring dream that I went to prom with Jimmy Stewart's imaginary friend, Harvey, and the band played nothing but "Here Comes Peter Cottontail." I tried to dissuade them by bribing them with the one thing that little girls want more than anything in the world: "Listen, you know how I said no pierced ears until you're 13? Well, I will take you to get your ears pierced right now. This very second. All you have to do is agree to no bunny. No bunny ever and you get your ears pierced today." They were unmoved. We got a bunny. Now, the important thing to remember any time any kid asks for any pet is that they want a dog. Kids will throw tennis balls into fish tanks screaming, "Fetch!" and try to train hamsters to get the newspaper. When I was seven, I tried to make my cat sleep at the foot of my bed like a cocker spaniel. I still have the scars to prove it. So I wasn't surprised when my kids wanted to "walk" the bunny around the neighborhood. No amount of explaining convinced them that (a) bunnies don't go on walks, and (b) we're weird enough. I finally took them to Petco so I could make their request to a trained professional and hear him laugh my children out of the store. I approached a team member named Roy, who was taping a "Customer SuperBargain! I'm Pregnant," sign onto a guinea pig cage. "Where are the bunny leashes?" I asked him. "With the cat leashes." Roy didn't bat an eye. I was dumbfounded. "People walk cats?" "Lady, you're in here looking for a bunny leash and you think that's strange?" Well played, Roy. Well played. Apparently, they make harness and leash systems for bunnies. When we put the little jacket on her, our bunny looked remarkably like Peter Rabbit in his blue pea coat. And I really like the book Peter Rabbit. As a child, I was fascinated by the fact that Mr. McGregor wanted to kill Peter. It was the first book that I'd read where anthropomorphic animals didn't exist on the same plane as humans. In most children's books, if a human and a by Erica Ford Sweeney S k i p t h e G a t e w a y Pe t s. . . ... and Just G et Y ou r K i d the Do g