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=Rabbit Welfare Association & Fund=

Rabbits are a class of exotic pet. “Just a decade years ago,” suggests Dr Linda Dykes, co-founder of the British Houserabbit Association, “it wasn’t uncommon for rabbit medicine to resemble something from the James Herriot era. Remember the tales of sick animals being treated with multivitamininjections? Fast forward to the mid-1990s, and that’s exactly how some vets would have treated your rabbit if he stopped eating.”

The field of exotic animal medicine is dynamic, with new, sometimes contradictory, information emerging regularly.

The Rabbit Welfare Association & Fund (RWAF) has worked to change the lives of Britain’s bunnies for the better since 1997. Thanks to its tireless campaigns, many British rabbit owners and vets are knowledgeable about GI stasis, the impact of dental disease, and the benefits of neutering.

The RWAF is a registered charity in Englandand Wales(charity number 1085689).

The Rabbit Welfare Association & Fund
Formerly known as the British Houserabbit Association, the RWAF began when four rabbit lovers decided to start a club for people who were keen to bring their rabbits indoors, aiming to raise the status of the domestic rabbit to that of a cat or dog. As well as promoting houserabbit ownership, the organisation aimed to raise awareness of the problems faced by domestic rabbits which can so often be confined to inadequate hutches without proper care. Rabbits are the third most popular, but the most neglected, pet in the UK and the RWAF was the first welfare organisation dedicated to them.

By 2000, the British Houserabbit Association had become much more than a club for houserabbit owners. It was time to become a charity, and also to rebrand the Association to reflect the work it was doing to promote rabbit welfare. The result was the Rabbit Welfare Association (the club) and the Rabbit Welfare Fund (the charity). Charitable registration was completed in 2001, following which the British Houserabbit Association was relaunched as the Rabbit Welfare Association & Fund.

in 2012, the Rabbit Welfare Association & Fund celebrates its 15th birthday. The Association is currently the UK’s only charity dedicated to improving the lives of pet rabbits.

Educating Owners
The Association’s first leaflet was titled, “[http://www.rabbitwelfare.co.uk/resources/content/leaflet_pdfs/heyNov07.pdf Hey, Look at me. I’m a Houserabbit],” and featured information on neutering, diet and behaviour. That leaflet was followed by the first incarnation of our magazine, Rabbiting On, which was photocopied and stapled by hand.

Members were hungry for knowledge, and bearing in mind that fewer than 10% of the U.K. population used the Internet in those early years, the Association started a helpline and set up a network of advisers to give advice over the phone.

Outreach
The Association relied on the traditional media to spread the word, as well as educational leaflets, which remain a vital tool. Even with the rise in Internet usage, the Association still produces more than 100,000 leaflets (14 titles) every year at a cost of about £7,000 ($11,000; €8,400).

Rabbit Welfare Association & Fund representatives also attend as many public events as possible. These outreach efforts occasionally attract criticism from those who think the RWAF should have nothing to do with other facets of the pet-rabbit industry, but the Association has always believed that it is more important to seize opportunities to educate and dispel myths, than to pretend that pet shops and rabbit shows (which many members find disturbing) do not exist.

If you want a benchmark for how far things have come, consider this: 15 years ago, you couldn’t buy a six-foot hutch from a mainstream retailer in the U.K., and rabbits were rarely kept in pairs.

Educating Vets
Although the initial emphasis of the Association was providing an entertaining, informative network for members, it was quickly realized that U.K. vets needed to catch up with their American counterparts.

A rabbit’s quality of life is inextricably linked to better medical care. This includes basics such as safe neutering, which enables rabbits to be kept in pairs.

The handful of vets who were particularly rabbit-savvy were recognized on the RWAF’s rabbit-friendly vet list a service that still exists today. For the rest, the Association launched an ambitious educational program.

In 2002, the Rabbit Welfare Association & Fund organized its first Rabbit Health Matters conference. The event was a sell-out, and has taken place annually ever since.

The next phase in influencing the U.K. veterinary profession was more ambitious: targeting vets still in training. Back in 1996, veterinary students typically only spent five days training in rabbit medicine. So, when the opportunity arose to co-fund a residency at Bristol Vet School (shared with Bristol Zoo), the opportunity was seized. To date, more than 2,000 veterinary and veterinary nursing students have been trained in Bristol’s state-of- the-art rabbit clinic, creating a generation of rabbit-savvy professionals in practice throughout the U.K.

Funding for Research
Rabbit Welfare Association & Fund grants have enabled research into topics such as E. cuniculi (it was an RWAF-funded project that revealed that 50% of British pet rabbits have been exposed to EC ), myxomatosis vectors, heart disease in rabbits, environmental enrichment and coccidiosis. Many pet rabbits benefited from this research.

Supporting Rescue Efforts
From the early days, the Association has supported rabbit rescue – but decided not to take a hands-on role.

The reason was simple: rabbit rescue provides an essential service to pick up the pieces when things have gone wrong. But education is essential to make sure things don’t go wrong as often. As Linda Dykes once said, “£100 ($160; €120) will pay for one or two rabbits to be neutered – or for 1,000 educational leaflets, which would hopefully result in at least 10 times as many rabbits actually being neutered.”

As well as providing educational literature free of charge for rescue centres to distribute, the RWAF has always encouraged rabbit adoptions. A directory of rescues is available via their helpline. In 2006 the Association launched Sponsor a Rescue, and to date, this program has raised almost £12,200 ($19,400; €14,600), benefiting 18 rescue centres so far.

Campaigning on the National Stage
Prior to the creation of the Rabbit Welfare Association & Fund, there was no single national body in Britain offering expert advice on companion rabbit issues. In 2002, the Association was approached by the government for advice when the Animal Welfare Act was still on the drawing board. By then it was probably Britain’s leading rabbit-welfare organization, serving on committees alongside other major animal welfare groups such as the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. The RWAF is part of the government’s Companion Animal Sector Council and is currently working on rabbit health and welfare standards.

One of the reasons it is established as the authority for U.K. rabbit-welfare issues is its politically moderate approach: building bridges, not barriers, and working with organizations that have a different philosophy, as long as we can improve rabbit welfare.

The most notable success recently has undoubtedly been influencing British retailers to stop selling completely inadequate hutches after research found that over 150,000 rabbits live in hutches that are too small, whilst 1.1 million rabbits live alone. The campaign was accompanied by a videoco-produced by the RWAF and Runaround, with music by Maria Daines.

Website
The RWAF believes its website is one of the most up-to-date and informative rabbit-specific websites in the world.

Magazine
Rabbiting On, the RWA’s quarterly magazine, has featured articles about choosing veterinarians, about poisons to avoid, and about the rabbit digestive system, among many other topics.

Moving On
What happens next is largely up to the charity’s members who are encouraged to help by donating time and money, however small the donation. For ideas on how our members and others can help, a Get Involved section on the website.

Rabbit Welfare Association helped set up local Hopper Groups where members could meet up and share rabbit stories and photos. Latterly, it has organized annual events such as the Houserabbit House Party, owner conferences and, more recently, fund-raising galas. This is in addition to the helpline, vet list, bunny-boarding list and a free vet referral service offered in conjunction with the vet residency program.

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