Perfectly Imperfect Lionhead

My favorite day of the year, National Scrapbook Day, was on Saturday. As always, I spent the whole day scrapbooking, completing challenges, playing games, and chatting with friends. It was so much fun!

I'd heard that A Cherry on Top puts on a great NSD crop, so that's what I did this year. Oh my gosh, it was incredible! There were so many different and creative challenges and games. If I counted correctly, they had SIXTY challenges. And dozens of games. It was almost overwhelming how much was going on. But what a fantastic problem to have! The challenges were the perfect difficulty level for me and I love what I created. And the prizes! ACOT will be awarding 100 prizes once the challenges close. (Most of them are open until May 19 if you want to join in.)

I'll be sharing the projects I made over the next few weeks. Today's is about Brayden and I made it for the Cinco de Mayo Pick Five Challenge. We had to pick five items from a list of 12 to include on our page. I chose: only one picture; white title; punch (the heart); decorative edge scissors (on the right); and grid design paper.

Perfectly Imperfect Lionhead (affiliate link)

Brayden is a lionhead rabbit, meaning he has a mane like a lion. When we first started fostering him, he was 10.5 months old and just had the mohawk (and whispy "skirt" fluffs on each flank). Right around his first birthday, the rest of Brayden's mane came in. It's super cute, especially when he tosses it like a woman in a shampoo commercial. 

This picture doesn't show the sides of his mane all that well, but it does show that Brayden is brachycephalic. Dog breeds like pugs or French bulldogs are prone to health issues because of the shortened skull; similarly, brachycephalic rabbits can face health issues, usually respiratory or dental. So far, thankfully, Brayden has been perfectly healthy. 

I am strongly opposed to selective breeding to create designer animals with these health risks. Worse, breeders' attempts to meet a breed standard means that any imperfect specimens are rejected. That can mean different things, ranging from bad (selling them as pets when there are already countless domestic rabbits without loving homes) to much, much worse. I don't know the circumstances behind Brayden's birth, but it's possible he's one of the thousands and thousands of lionheads who are intentionally bred and then rejected based on a single physical flaw. It's very upsetting. 

I titled this layout Perfectly Imperfect Lionhead. Brayden is perfectly imperfect. And we love him just the way he is.