Author, Creator, Designer
Where I belong
I live in a small coastal rural town in Victoria. My family have lived there since 1988.
When I was 16 I started developing websites for businesses, and became a graphic designer. I used my design skills to learn 2D animation, which sprung me into animation studios where I worked on some popular cartoons for television stations. However, as needs changed, so did the want for 3D animation skills. I then taught myself 3D modelling and animation – keep in mind it was still the late 90’s, so it was still only a new skill for everyone, and highly sought after.
This threw me head-first into a brand new world of gaming. Well, really, I was interested in computers and games from an early age; I was gifted my first gaming console, a SEGA Mega Drive, for Christmas when I was 12. So after learning 3D modelling, and being a rare breed world wide, my skills were needed for many projects everywhere. Of course, more and more people started picking up the skills, and my interests melded into focusing on game development and coding. I went to university and completed a degree in game development. I then had ambitions of making the next best game, which I learned quite quickly, so did everyone else. I was involved with many games, machinima projects (animations made in a game engine), and slowly started to find it stressful, repetitive and boring.
Somewhere during the 2000’s I decided to use my skills and become a Secondary School IT and Media teacher. Later, I moved to Melbourne where I worked with government departments and universities on current youth issues including game addiction by creating resources and holding seminars to support parents. I also spent a lot of time developing teacher’s skills in multimedia, which came in handy when we had to start teaching online in 2020.
I am now using all of my skills in this website, where you will find educational animations, games and videos that cover topics on rabbit health, nutrition, history, care and a plethora of other topics.
My first bunny was when I was 9 years old (late 80’s). He was a white and brown mix-breed and he cost $9.00 from a pet store in Boronia, Victoria. The little bundle of fluff looked like a gum moth, he was as soft as a gum moth and he was the same colours as a gum moth. So we named him Moth.
Everyone who asked his name always questioned it, I guess it’s a weird name to call a rabbit. I didn’t think it was back then, it was just who he was.
Back then the Internet didn’t exist, so I had to go with what I thought was right, and old-fashioned information from my grandparents. My grandfather, Pa, immigrated with his wife and 4 children from Holland in 1956. My Mum was one of those children. Oma and Pa lived with us, and each time we moved they came along. Pa always had a fabulous vegetable garden, he had green thumbs. Moth’s pen was right next to the vegetable garden, and the plants would flop over the fence that separated the pen from the garden. Moth would jump on top of the wooden bunny-house and eat everything that flopped over the fence. Pa loved that and feed him heaps of veggies, which made Moth grow and grow.
Moth won me a prize when I was 11. I used to watch a morning kids program on TV every Saturday morning. They had a competition to win a stack of games and stickers (I loved stickers back then) if you sent in a photo and a short story about your pet. Of course, I sent Moth’s photo in. I remember the host of the TV show displaying the photo and reading the letter I sent in. I was so proud.
We got another bunny when I was about 12. He was a black dwarf from a dodgy pet shop in the local area. On the car ride home he was in a cardboard box between my legs in the footwell of the passenger seat. He took a flying leap and landed on the dashboard. I can’t figure out how he did it in a single jump, but he did. I had to pick him up off the dashboard and I held him for a while. He bit a hole in my jumper. He also bit a hole in my pants. When we got him home, he bit right through my Dad’s thumb. We called him Nasty. People would come to visit and ask “Do you still have Dangerous?”, we would answer “Oh, you mean Nasty?”…
He didn’t stay with us long, probably about 3 months. He escaped out of everything we put him in, and he would run so fast. We weren’t sure what to do with him. We ended up returning him to another pet shop in another town, and never really looked back. Hopefully he found a good home.
Moth died when I was at school one day. He was 6 years old, I was 14. Mum and Dad buried him in the garden, and showed me the dirt pile when I got home. I always felt sad about that, I still do to this day. I have guilt about not being there for him.
My sister and aunt knew I missed Moth a lot and were travelling near The Grampians not long after Moth died and saw a sign for baby rabbits on the side of the road. They went in to have a look. The poor little things were malnourished and really small. They chose a female one for me, and brought her home in a cardboard box. We called her Jessica.
Jessica was really sick. She was lethargic and sleepy the whole time. She passed away not long later.
Skipping a few years…
After spending many years at University, I became a secondary school teacher, teaching IT and Media. I loved teaching Year 11 and 12, it was great to be in a class with students who actually wanted to learn. I was a teacher for many years, then the pandemic hit and they mandated the jabs. I waited until the last minute to get my first two jabs because I didn’t want to get them. I disagreed with the fact that they were forcing “front line workers” to get the jab. Anyway, the following year in early-March (2022) I had a stroke. Cutting a long story short, I couldn’t return to teaching due to constant tremors, so I had to retire. To help me through this tough time, my family suggested that I get support pets; and they knew how much I loved bunnies… and that’s where this story starts.
I started to write Buttons’ Memoir because I now have memory issues, and I thought it would be good to have a record of everything. After a short time, it developed into a full-blown website, with research articles, scientific journals and help for everyone who wants to learn about rabbits.
The great quantity of information I have learned in a short time has shown great holes in the information being shared around online; this drove me to try and create a source of quality information that is not confusing, contradictory or plain incorrect.
I want Buttons’ World to be the most reliable source of information about rabbits, where everyone can trust the information to help them deliver the best life for all rabbits.
Rabbits as pets
Way back in the day, it was normal to have a rabbit as a pet. But back then, there wasn’t that much information. No one really thought about rabbit diet plans, exercise and entertainment. They usually kept the rabbit in a hutch in the backyard and only looked at it once a day.
Things have changed a lot since then. In 2013, rabbits were finally changed from agricultural status to household pet status. Which meant a lot more people could have rabbits as pets – even though people may have already had them as pets, they wouldn’t have known they were keeping them illegally. Some states in Australia still do not allow domestic rabbits to be kept as pets (they have millions of wild ones running around) because it can introduce immunity to myxomatosis and calicivirus (which is happening naturally anyway).
Due to people having a greater knowledge on how to care for rabbits, more and more people choose to keep them indoors away from the chances of catching myxo or calici. Other people choose to keep their rabbits outside; this is fine when they are looked after properly and given all of the things they need.
Rabbit Advocate
Dr. Sonia is a Rabbit Advocate. That means she makes sure the rabbit’s health and welfare comes first. That is the reason why she spends many hours a day working on providing the information on this site, and talking to professionals who need a platform to share their knowledge.
In the near future, Dr. Sonia the Rabbit Advocate Program will be an online training course on how to be someone who recommends solutions to providing the best rabbit welfare and care with the backing of Buttons’ World’s network of support.
If you are interested in the Rabbit Advocate Program; becoming a content creator, writer, teacher, presenter, artist or developer, don’t hesitate to contact Dr. Sonia and let her know. She is always looking to connect with helpful, truthful and intelligent people.
Dr. Sonia’s Rabbits
This has been a long story in the making, it has had many highs and some very deep lows. If you want to find out about the rabbits, Buttons’ Memoir has all the information.
Moth
Nasty
Jessica
Buttons
Cotton
Chester
Maple
Lunar
Nova
Coffee
Hamish