Like most UC Berkeley students, 22-year-old Sheridan Eggers has a roommate. Hers just happens to be an orphaned, disabled rabbit named Simone Biles from the Richmond-based shelter House Rabbit Society.
“My best friend in high school had a rabbit, and so I went over and instantly fell in love with it. It was this tiny dwarf rabbit named Theo, and he was just so sweet,” Eggers said. “I told my mom I would just love to have a rabbit someday, so she suggested fostering. The first rabbit that I fostered, not with HRS but back at home in Indiana, was this massive 8-and-a-half-pound rabbit named Brute. I was hooked on learning everything about them after that.”
Sheridan Eggers sits with “Simone Buniles” the rabbit on Friday, Feb. 28th, 2025 in Berkeley, Calif. Buniles is a foster animal from the House Rabbit Society in Richmond, Calif. Bruniles suffers from Splay Leg, a physical disability that prevents her hind back leg from bending, Eggers has fostered 11 rabbits over the years and is a senior at the University of California Berkeley for Music and Sociology. (Photo by Douglas Despres for the Bay Area News Group)
HRS is calling on Bay Area animal lovers to assist in fostering some of its 85 rabbits after pandemic-era restrictions on spaying and neutering led to a nationwide bunny boom — and left the East Bay shelter short-handed to deal with the influx of rabbits at Bay Area animal shelters, interim executive director Amber Tadena said.
“Foster homes are equally as important as adoptive homes are for rescue rabbits,” Tadena said. “With our facility space being limited to approximately 40 enclosures, we needed a way to create more capacity for care to accommodate the increase in transfer requests. Our foster program makes this possible.”
Sharea Giger feeds rabbits at the House Rabbit Society on Friday, Feb. 28th, 2025 in Richmond, Calif. Giger is the Animal Care Coordinator and has worked there for six years. The food is a mix of lettece, kale, parsley, and dandelion leaves, supplementing their main food of hay. (Photo by Douglas Despres for the Bay Area News Group)
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HRS has taken in 161 rabbits from more than a dozen different shelters across California in the past year, communications manager Larissa Church said. Many of these rabbits have been discarded for health defects, banished by rental regulations or abandoned to the outdoors by naive or neglectful owners. While 118 of those HRS rabbits were adopted, too many remain to be cared for by the four full-time shelter staff. That’s why HRS has worked to cultivate a network of people like Eggers who can alleviate some of the burden on the shelter.
For as briefly as two weeks, volunteers can foster a rabbit with HRS; they will be provided with almost everything they need to care for them, Church said. Volunteers are given an enclosure, bedding, a litter box and free veterinary care if a rabbit falls ill. This effort has been repeated 426 times over the past year as rabbits have been shuffled between homes and back to RHS. The only cost to volunteers, she added, is about $5 worth of leafy greens per week.
“We want to make fostering accessible to people,” Church said. “Oftentimes, people come back and they’re like, ‘I had a wonderful experience, but it wasn’t for me.’ And that’s totally fine because it still gave us two weeks with a rabbit in a home.”
Tadena described the relationship between rabbits and their foster owners as symbiotic: Volunteers experience the joy of owning a low-maintenance pet for a short period, while the rabbits receive love, attention and treats. Meanwhile, TRS can focus on re-homing the pets in their care.
Amber Tadena poses in the kitchen with “Spam” of the House Rabbit Society on Friday, Feb. 28th, 2025 in Richmond, Calif. Tadena acts as Interim Executive Director. Spam is named after the tech and not the food. (Photo by Douglas Despres for the Bay Area News Group)
What many don’t realize is that as prey animals, rabbits’ natural state is to be timid and “scared of the world,” Egger said. But as they open up, their demeanor changes, and Eggers enjoys finding the unique personality in each rabbit she’s fostered. Simone, who she described as having a “resting smiling face,” is no exception.
“She’s like very attention-seeking and demanding,” Eggers said. “I can’t really walk by her without her sticking her head out trying to ask me to pet her.”
Giving back to HRS has helped Eggers embrace the hare-y parts of the East Bay after living in Indiana. Between practicing cello and studying sociology, she’s found comfort in coming home to a joyful ball of fur named Simone who’s not great at getting around and is perfectly content lying in front of the T.V. and waiting for her next head scratch.
“I’ve noticed this with the past few disabled rabbits I’ve fostered — they just love people so much. I think it has something to do with relying on people for everything,” Eggers said. “She really just wants my company.”
