Mellow and kind of stupid as in more stupid than most rabbits if that is saying anything. Then there was his mother. The other rabbit. Her name was "Beast". This was back in the early 80s before that word had other colloquialistic meanings.

She was fierce. She had to really know your scent and connect that to a non threat for her not to try and bite you or rip your hand open with her forefeet.

So behind our house there was a neighbor that had this mean nasty cat (I called it "Meathead" because it had this huge head that didn't seem right for its body size) that would harass the dogs next door. This animal wasn't afraid of anything. Even throwing rocks at it didn't seem to phase this cat.

One morning I'm doing the dishes because I was on KP duty (yes military home) and staring out the window into the back yard.

The rabbits are chilling in their cages while this mean cat decides it wants to investigate the rabbits a bit more closely.

It jumps down and saunters over to the boy rabbits cage and he is freaked out and pushed up against the corner all stressed while Meathead is sniffing the air gauging the possibilities.

For some reason Beast seems to attract Meatheads's attention. So it moves around to where the cage door is. Suddenly without warning Meathead lunges at the cage and tries to scratch Beast while Beast moves out of the way of the attack. The jostling of the cage due to the rabbit and cat action actually accidently jostles the door open.

So for several moments Meathead is eyeing the opening and in my morbid fascination I'm glued to the window like I'm watching some survival of the fittest nature show. I didn't like the rabbits since I had to care for them even though they weren't mine (one of my mother's many weird projects) so my empathy wasn't at the highest of levels.

Meathead decides to lunge towards the cage again stopping just before the opening. Beast doesn't move a muscle. Completely frozen. Then Meathead goes for it. Gets its big fat head and front half of it's body into the cage for the kill strike and then Beast goes all Sugar Ray Leonard on this cat.

I was stunned. The cat was trying to attack than immediately it was trying to get out of the cage, but the rapid fire punching and scratching kept pulling Meathead toward Beast like a combine on a tractor, just super fast.

I could hear Meatheads caterwauling as it was getting destroyed by this rabbit. Beast had begun to chomp away at the cat's face as well.

Meathead finally was able to extricate itself from the cage and took off.

I went outside to assess the damage. Beast was fine. A couple toe nails had been ripped out, but the blood on her face and body wasn't her's.

A few days later Meathead was sitting on the fence looking over at the rabbits, one eye looked like it was severely damaged and one ear was partially missing.

Meathead never actually entered our yard again. At least during waking hours.

From that moment for some reason I was proud to have this monster of a rabbit. Beast was now the goat of all rabbits in my 13 year old brain. Lol.