Wednesday, July 19, 2006

Eternal Righteousness is as easy as complaining about a rabbit with a pancake on it's head.

The reason for Oolong's large fanbase on the Internet is the fact that Akutagawa had trained the rabbit to balance objects on his head, an art Hironori called "Head Performance". The first object balanced on Oolong's head was a 35mm film canister on 25 May 1999.[1] Soon, the rabbit had moved on to balance multiple things on his head, including tea cups, bread, fruit, pancakes, and even a rabbit skull. Although most people found the pictures to be cute (especially those in which food was balanced), there were some complaints made by viewers who believed the practice to be cruel to animals. In a message to website viewers, Akutagawa wrote "Some visitors have written me e-mails, accusing me of being cruel to my rabbit and that I am abusing my pet. This was never my intention when I included numerous links to photographs, showing Oolong's unique ability to hold objects on his head. This is not a site to mock rabbits, or demonstrate animal abuse. I'm sure you understand it if you see whole my site."

The head performance is actually a result of the domestic rabbit's natural tendency to cuddle with each other, other animals (like housecats) and their owners by submissively putting their heads underneath the others' chin. They seem to find the contact and light weight on their foreheads comforting. Any training involved would be minimal.
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oolong_%28rabbit%29

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