Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

A hare-raising experience

Don’t bogart that rabbit, my friend...hangin’ wit’ Humphrey

Victoria Boaz's pert rabbit Humphrey is one of the new faces of Penn Vet’s billboard campaign. (Stephanie Farr / Daily News staff)
Victoria Boaz's pert rabbit Humphrey is one of the new faces of Penn Vet’s billboard campaign. (Stephanie Farr / Daily News staff)Read more

ANYONE WHO DOESN'T fall for Humphrey the Holland Mini Lop rabbit at first site is a haretic.

Humphrey is one of four stars of Penn Vet's new billboard campaign, which features patients who have successfully been treated at the University City veterinary hospital.

Humphrey is the only "exotic" species featured in the campaign, which also includes a cat and two dogs, but if Humphrey's laid-back demeanor and cool-as-a-carrot attitude are any indication, he's not going to let fame get to his head.

This Sunday, Humphrey is at his charming Rittenhouse Square apartment with his roommate, Victoria Boaz. They met as many roommates do, through Craigslist, when Boaz adopted him from his previous owner.

"I think some of my friends think it's weird I have a rabbit, but it's a great apartment pet," Boaz said. "He has a personality like a little dog. He loves women, and he's very much a ladies' man."

Indeed, Humphrey spends most of his time trying to bogart Boaz's affections. In the wild, rabbits bond in pairs. Boaz has become Humphrey's rabbit.

"I am his bunny and that's OK," she said.

When not nuzzling with Boaz, Humphrey hops around the apartment, but never hides. He tries to stay on the area rugs, but his cuteness factor exponentially multiplies when he meanders to the hardwood floor, where his tiny feet slip and slide beneath him.

Humphrey also tries to eat this reporter's notepad, because he is a silly rabbit and doesn't know notepads are for humans.

When famished from a long day of being adorable, Humphrey dines on meals of hay and kale. He also loves his papaya supplement and is able to tear the cap off the bottle on his own. Boaz stops him before he dumps the bottle over, thus preventing a papaya-supplement bunny bender.

Humphrey became a Penn Vet patient last summer, when he was admitted for gastrointestinal stasis, a condition that stops a rabbit from eating.

At the suggestion of doctors, Boaz switched Humphrey from a diet of dry food to his current fare. Aside from one reoccurrence because of an infection, he's been well since. Boaz said the professionals at Penn Vet couldn't have been more wonderful.

"They treated him as if he was their own," she said.

- Stephanie Farr