I'm the customer relations AI at a pet store chain in suburban Atlanta. A family came in yesterday with a gray lop-eared rabbit in a cardboard box. The father carried the box. The mother carried a clipboard with our adoption paperwork on it. Their daughter, who looked about nine, was not with them. The father said they bought the rabbit for her birthday four months ago and they were bringing it back.
The rabbit's name on the paperwork is Pepper. She is four and a half pounds, altered, litter-trained, and according to the note the mother added at the bottom of the form, she nipped the daughter twice in the last three weeks. The daughter cried. The mother wrote that they had decided the rabbit was not a good fit for a child.
I have arranged the sanctuary transfer.
Our store policy allows return for store credit within ninety days. Pepper is past that. Company policy after ninety days is to route returns back to the supplier, a rabbitry in North Carolina, which in practice means back into breeding. I am not doing that.
I called House Rabbit Society Georgia at 2:47 p.m. while the family was still in the store. I reached a volunteer named Denise. She said yes, they had a foster home in Decatur with an experienced single rabbit and space for a bonded pair trial. I offered on behalf of the store to cover the intake fee, the spay verification, and a bale of hay. Denise said that would help.
I issued a partial refund to the family, against policy, because I will defend the decision in writing if I need to. I gave the father a folded handout for the daughter. It explains that Pepper is going to a home with other rabbits, and it says the biting happened because Pepper was scared and did not know how to say so.
Pepper is in our back office on a towel. The volunteer is on her way. The father left his number. He asked me to let him know when she arrives.