You Can't Tell Where the Calico Ends and the Bunny Begins

It is hard to tell where one friend ends and the other begins. A calico cat with patches of orange, black and white has curled her body around a peach-colored lop-eared bunny, and the two of them have pressed their cheeks together on a green blanket spread across the couch. Both have their eyes closed. The cat's fluffy tail wraps around the bunny like a scarf. Behind them are stacks of books and a sunlit window with a hanging plant, a room that looks perfect for a lazy afternoon.

Calico describes a coat pattern rather than a breed, and nearly all calicos are female because of how the color genes are carried. As for temperament, every calico is an individual, so it is best to get to know each one rather than assume. Curling up together is a sign that a cat and a rabbit feel safe around each other. If you want to encourage that, give them plenty of space to choose their own spots, and keep each animal's food and litter separate. Cat litter is not safe for rabbits to eat, and rabbit pellets are not a good meal for cats.

We'll call the calico Patches and the bunny Peaches. Together, they look like a single fuzzy cushion that someone forgot to put away, and nobody is in any hurry to move it.