Home Officers Breeders Members Specialty Shows News Sweepstakes Documents Articles Links	The Wee Morning Hours.... by Tommy D's Tomi Hi, I am Tommy D’s Tomi, a senior blue dutch doe who resides with the Everett family and Grandma Sandy of Clio, Michigan. I was born and raised at Tommy D’s house before he moved to Arizona. Tom asked me to write an article explaining what rabbits did on the second night of the National Dutch Show after the completion of the judging. The time frame covered will be midnight to 6:00 a.m. A past article by one of my rabbit relatives covered the first night of an ARBA convention before the judging, so this will be a different perspective. Tom told me to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Upon hearing the show room doors lock, and without human interference, the wee hour shenanigans were about to start. Educational activities started as David and Greg Moll’s rabbits organized an activity their owners had observed at college. All of us rabbits hopped out of our cages and were divided into two teams – blacks, chocolates, and steels were on one team and blue, gray and tortoise were on the other. A line was drawn on the concrete and each team occupied one side. A boisterous chant was started; my team yelled “tastes great” and the other team yelled “less filling”. We did this for several minutes and tempers were beginning to flare. We then all shook paws and slowly backed away from the line drawn on the concrete. College kids have such fun educational activities. Other activities started. Megan Gottschalk’s rabbits demonstrated their tattooing skills. Several willing participants volunteered for tattoos, most notably the Ohio based rabbits. A black inscription of the phrase “THE Ohio State University” was inked in their white back area and the rabbits who did well in the show had numerous buckeyes inked on their heads. (Good thing the show was over!) A rabbit committee formed to judge the six human show judges on a rabbit based standard of perfection. Unfortunately, all were disqualified as follows: Dr Hayhow had white hair, where a person of his age should not. Kelli Slack was the obvious winner as she was the best looking of the group, but as the only female, she was disqualified for being the wrong sex in a male group. Mark Stewardson, from Canada, was disqualified for not having a US citizenship noted on his pedigree. The committee voted to give him an honorary US citizenship and expressed their pleasure on how well he gently handled us; but rules are rules. Dick Gehr did not meet age requirements, though to be nice, some rabbits thought he was only a day or two over the show rabbit retirement age. Brad Boyce was noted as having one color rabbits at his house, this caused disqualifications due to marking faults (tied on the elbow, split stops, no visible markings). Erik Bengston was also disqualified as the committee interviewed his wife by phone and she did note she had seen a freckle and some pimples on some of his body parts. So he became a double disqualifee. There was one human present, but he is an honorary rabbit. Jack Wireman ran a short rabbit story telling session that started at 12:30 a.m. and ended at 5:00 a.m. 2000 rabbits participated in this at one time or another. Jack wore his rabbit ears and bunny tail and had his dutch coat on. A man of fashion he is. A three credit college course was taught by the Tommy D line rabbits, titled “The story behind the stories and the ins and outs of raising Dutch rabbits”. Kristy Hume’s website was used as the course syllabus. Kristy’s rabbits also showed off their skills by touching water cups and other objects, turning them to gold. All the rabbits were presented a gold cup as an official souvenir of the show – hope the humans don’t notice the missing cups. Further skills demonstrated by Kristy’s rabbits were hair streaking and coloring. Several of Jill Pfaff’s and Gene Knieling’s black rabbits became harlequins. On the hour, Sue, Theresa, and the other Wisconsin entourage would start the wave on the big screen. All rabbits enjoyed this as it is a lot of fun to stand on your hind feet. As the building shook, the outside night watchman, Ed McKinley, enjoyed his nap. Rabbits shared some secrets, such as the Herb Six rabbits noted Herb gave them extra treats if they came in sixth and praised them for keeping the number six in the family. Also, their daily chant was “one is good, two is better, but six is the best!” All other rabbits voted to change Herb’s name to Herb One. Also, one of the world’s greatest mysteries was brought up by the Mike Smith rabbits (who had a big weekend). They, along with the other 2000 rabbits, wondered how Mike could have two beautiful and intelligent daughters, Jennifer and Emily. A committee was formed to further explore this perplexing question, chair was a Lehman rabbit. Four explanations were presented; The girls were adopted. That Mike did possess these qualities. Other older family members were questioned; it was noted that Mike was a somewhat cute baby in his own way, and he was halfway intelligent at birth, as he said “rumplestiltskin” when spanked. He was called Little Rumple until 10 years of age. Things just happen. Dee, Mike’s wife, possesses the same qualities as her daughters The great world mystery was finally solved; #4 is the answer. Well, a lot of other happenings happened, but about 5:00 a.m. we all decided to catch an hour of sleep before the showroom opened at 6:00. As usual, the west coast rabbits were having trouble sleeping due to the time change. The ever thinking Michigan rabbits of Hayley Reneberg and Alexandra Reau came to the rescue. The promotional videos of their farms were displayed on the big screen. As the non sleepers watched Alexandra’s sheep, they counted one sheep, two sheep, three sheep, etc, until most were asleep. For the hardcore non sleepers, Hayley’s goat video did the trick. They counted one little kid, two little kids, three little kids, etc. 6:00 a.m. arrived quickly, as the sleep deprived humans, know as Janet, Julie, Carlene, Brenda, and Megan, opened the showroom doors, we (the rabbits) all thanked them in unison for providing us with an awesome experience, where we could socialize with over 2000 of us rabbits and countless human friends. Respectfully submitted, Tommy D’s Tomi (a rabbit)

The Wee Morning Hours....
by Tommy D's Tomi

Hi, I am Tommy D’s Tomi, a senior blue dutch doe who resides with the Everett family and Grandma Sandy of Clio, Michigan. I was born and raised at Tommy D’s house before he moved to Arizona. Tom asked me to write an article explaining what rabbits did on the second night of the National Dutch Show after the completion of the judging. The time frame covered will be midnight to 6:00 a.m. A past article by one of my rabbit relatives covered the first night of an ARBA convention before the judging, so this will be a different perspective.

Tom told me to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

Upon hearing the show room doors lock, and without human interference, the wee hour shenanigans were about to start.

Educational activities started as David and Greg Moll’s rabbits organized an activity their owners had observed at college. All of us rabbits hopped out of our cages and were divided into two teams – blacks, chocolates, and steels were on one team and blue, gray and tortoise were on the other. A line was drawn on the concrete and each team occupied one side. A boisterous chant was started; my team yelled “tastes great” and the other team yelled “less filling”. We did this for several minutes and tempers were beginning to flare. We then all shook paws and slowly backed away from the line drawn on the concrete. College kids have such fun educational activities.

Other activities started. Megan Gottschalk’s rabbits demonstrated their tattooing skills. Several willing participants volunteered for tattoos, most notably the Ohio based rabbits. A black inscription of the phrase “THE Ohio State University” was inked in their white back area and the rabbits who did well in the show had numerous buckeyes inked on their heads. (Good thing the show was over!)

A rabbit committee formed to judge the six human show judges on a rabbit based standard of perfection. Unfortunately, all were disqualified as follows:

Dr Hayhow had white hair, where a person of his age should not.
Kelli Slack was the obvious winner as she was the best looking of the group, but as the only female, she was disqualified for being the wrong sex in a male group.
Mark Stewardson, from Canada, was disqualified for not having a US citizenship noted on his pedigree. The committee voted to give him an honorary US citizenship and expressed their pleasure on how well he gently handled us; but rules are rules.
Dick Gehr did not meet age requirements, though to be nice, some rabbits thought he was only a day or two over the show rabbit retirement age.
Brad Boyce was noted as having one color rabbits at his house, this caused disqualifications due to marking faults (tied on the elbow, split stops, no visible markings).
Erik Bengston was also disqualified as the committee interviewed his wife by phone and she did note she had seen a freckle and some pimples on some of his body parts. So he became a double disqualifee.

There was one human present, but he is an honorary rabbit. Jack Wireman ran a short rabbit story telling session that started at 12:30 a.m. and ended at 5:00 a.m. 2000 rabbits participated in this at one time or another. Jack wore his rabbit ears and bunny tail and had his dutch coat on. A man of fashion he is.

A three credit college course was taught by the Tommy D line rabbits, titled “The story behind the stories and the ins and outs of raising Dutch rabbits”. Kristy Hume’s website was used as the course syllabus.

Kristy’s rabbits also showed off their skills by touching water cups and other objects, turning them to gold. All the rabbits were presented a gold cup as an official souvenir of the show – hope the humans don’t notice the missing cups. Further skills demonstrated by Kristy’s rabbits were hair streaking and coloring. Several of Jill Pfaff’s and Gene Knieling’s black rabbits became harlequins.

On the hour, Sue, Theresa, and the other Wisconsin entourage would start the wave on the big screen. All rabbits enjoyed this as it is a lot of fun to stand on your hind feet. As the building shook, the outside night watchman, Ed McKinley, enjoyed his nap.

Rabbits shared some secrets, such as the Herb Six rabbits noted Herb gave them extra treats if they came in sixth and praised them for keeping the number six in the family. Also, their daily chant was “one is good, two is better, but six is the best!” All other rabbits voted to change Herb’s name to Herb One.

Also, one of the world’s greatest mysteries was brought up by the Mike Smith rabbits (who had a big weekend). They, along with the other 2000 rabbits, wondered how Mike could have two beautiful and intelligent daughters, Jennifer and Emily. A committee was formed to further explore this perplexing question, chair was a Lehman rabbit. Four explanations were presented;

The girls were adopted.
That Mike did possess these qualities. Other older family members were questioned; it was noted that Mike was a somewhat cute baby in his own way, and he was halfway intelligent at birth, as he said “rumplestiltskin” when spanked. He was called Little Rumple until 10 years of age.
Things just happen.
Dee, Mike’s wife, possesses the same qualities as her daughters

The great world mystery was finally solved; #4 is the answer.

Well, a lot of other happenings happened, but about 5:00 a.m. we all decided to catch an hour of sleep before the showroom opened at 6:00. As usual, the west coast rabbits were having trouble sleeping due to the time change. The ever thinking Michigan rabbits of Hayley Reneberg and Alexandra Reau came to the rescue. The promotional videos of their farms were displayed on the big screen. As the non sleepers watched Alexandra’s sheep, they counted one sheep, two sheep, three sheep, etc, until most were asleep. For the hardcore non sleepers, Hayley’s goat video did the trick. They counted one little kid, two little kids, three little kids, etc.

6:00 a.m. arrived quickly, as the sleep deprived humans, know as Janet, Julie, Carlene, Brenda, and Megan, opened the showroom doors, we (the rabbits) all thanked them in unison for providing us with an awesome experience, where we could socialize with over 2000 of us rabbits and countless human friends.

Respectfully submitted,
Tommy D’s Tomi
(a rabbit)

The Wee Morning Hours.... by Tommy D's Tomi

The Wee Morning Hours....
by Tommy D's Tomi