House Rabbit Society

House Rabbit Society is an international, nonprofit animal welfare organization based in Richmond, California. Our mission has two parts: Through our fostering program, volunteers help rescue abandoned rabbits and find permanent adoptive homes for them. Through education, we seek to reduce the number of unwanted rabbits — and to improve bunnies’ lives — by helping people better understand these often misunderstood companion animals. In line with our mission, we are against the exploitation of rabbits. Since HRS was founded in 1988, over 30,000 rabbits have been rescued through our foster homes across the United States. Many of these bunnies had run out of time at animal shelters and were scheduled for euthanasia; others had been deemed “unadoptable” because of age, health, or disposition. Because there is no time limit on our rescued rabbits, HRS foster parents are able to spend time getting to know each individual bunny and can then match him or her with an appropriate home. We neuter/spay all incoming rabbits, obtain any necessary veterinary care, and attend to their social needs. In caring for so many diverse bunnies, our organization has learned a tremendous amount about their social, behavioral, and medical requirements. By sharing the collected information these rabbits have taught us, we are able to help other people improve their relationships with their rabbits. HRS provides educational materials to veterinarians and humane societies and helps individual rabbit people solve behavior and health problems, primarily through our web site, rabbit.org, and our quarterly publication, House Rabbit Journal. Over the past 20 years, HRS has grown from 300 to more than 8,000 members, with local chapters and educators in 37 states plus Canada, Italy, Hong Kong, Australia, Greece, Japan and Singapore. Our web site, rabbit.org, is accessed over 100,000 times a day by people in dozens of countries around the world.

Due to COVID-19 and Rabbit Hemorrhagic Disease Virus (RHDV), we’ve had to modify our adoption process. Currently we are doing a 2-night foster-to-adopt process where potential adopters can bring a potential bunny home to foster to see if they are the right fit. After the first two nights together, they can finalize the adoption over email, including signing the adoption agreement and paying the adoption fee ($100 for a single rabbit, $150 for a bonded pair). It is part of our adoption agreement that rabbits be housed indoors as part of the family. You can learn more on our website: https://rabbit.org/rabbit-center/adopt