Sophomore Natalie Johnson did not know there was a bunny rabbit on campus until she walked into an empty classroom to work and saw the animal hopping around.
Named Summer, the almost two-year-old bunny owned by Upper School Science teacher Emily Myhre is a classroom pet who lives in room 906 in the Valdes Stem and Innovation Center.
Myhre first decided to have a classroom rabbit at a previous independent school in the DC area where she taught. Attempting to persuade administration at the school, she would persistently send articles to the Head of the Upper School in hopes of convincing him that a classroom pet would be beneficial to their students.
“[The article he read] where he finally allowed me to get a classroom pet was one about how all the other schools in the area, our competitor schools, all had school pets of some version,” Myhre said.
After seeing the article, the administrator agreed to let Myhre get a class pet, although, he did prohibit her from getting a cat or dog as a pet. After the confirmation, Myhre began her research to find out which species of animal would suit the school environment best.
“I found out that rabbits are most active during morning and afternoon, and they can be litter box trained which was really nice because you don’t want [a] mess all over the classroom,” Myhre said. “[Rabbits are] really friendly and pretty hypoallergenic for the most part.”
Once the administrators gave Myhre approval for a rabbit, she adopted her first pet bunny from a local animal shelter. After one of her rabbits in a bonded pair passed away, Myhre needed one more to accompany the male rabbit she already had at home.
“I did some reading about different rabbit breeds and the Flemish Giant just seemed like an interesting breed,” Myhre said. “They are supposed to be very friendly, one of the most friendly of the domestic [rabbit] breeds.”
After adopting Summer with the original hopes of having her bond with the other rabbit, Myhre found out that the two did not get along as well as she had hoped. This left her with the decision to keep one rabbit at home and bring one to her class as a pet.
“Summer is the more friendly outgoing one, so she is really a better classroom pet [out of the two],” Myhre said.
Junior Michelle Akins is in Myhre’s Biology and AP Environmental Science classes, and says she feels Summer creates a less tense environment in class.
“[Summer is] very exhilarating, and I would say it is a kind of break from all the pressure [of class] when you just have a bunny walking around.,” Akins said.
According to Myhre, since Summer’s arrival at campus, she eased the stress levels of students, providing an escape from schoolwork.
“It is always nice when I come in and there is a random student who is not one of my students, who is not one of Dr. Parnell’s students, just somebody on campus hanging out and petting a bunny,” Myhre said.
