Sheep-herding bunny with swagger goes viral as he shows off his skills

A mixed-breed bunny from a small village in Sweden has decided he can do the job of sheep-herding as well as any self-respecting shepherd dog – and dog trainers agree: they’ve never trained a rabbit before; no one has.

The appropriately named Champis doesn’t just hop around the farm picking through sweet potatoes and fresh tomatoes and grubbing for carrots. He earns his keep around the farm by herding the small flock of sheep the farm’s owners Greta and Nils-Erik Vigren keep. And here’s the really impressive part: no one taught him how to do it. He apparently figured it all out himself by watching trained dogs do the job.

A friend of the Vigrens took a video of Champis at work and it garnered more than 700,000 hits on YouTube last week. The video, shot last June, shows a hard-working Champis running back and forth trying to keep the sheep together.

Greta Vigren said she noticed the bunny’s proclivities last spring, when they first let the sheep out to graze after the long winter. "He just started to behave like a sheepdog," she recalled, adding that while he likes to round up the sheep, he is careful to treat the farm’s chickens more gently.

Ironically, it was a sheepherding dog trainer who videotaped Champis at his best. Dan Westman said he was in awe of the bunny’s skills, and added the most remarkable accolade: he claims Cahmpis does the job better than most dogs would. Now that’s a compliment, coming from a sheepherding trainer himself.

"It's really incredible, it's a herding rabbit," he said. "He rounds them up, and if they get close to escaping through the gate he sometimes stops them," he comments. “I work with sheepdogs and know how hard this is. There are very few dogs that could do what this rabbit does."

Despite his size, the sheep seem to respect and obey Champis. We are sure it must have also something to do with his confidence and skill.

Maybe the bunny saw “Babe” and decided if a pig can herd sheep, then why not bunnies? Readers may remember that “Babe,” an award-winning 1995 film, featured a sheepherding piglet. The film was, in turn, based on a popular children’s 1983 book The Sheep-Pig.

Champis might be the first bunny in recorded history to accomplish his feat. Rabbits have historically held a fairly low status in the domesticated-animals totem pole, being raised primarily for meat. It was not until the 19th century, during Victorian times, that the rabbit became popular as a pet.

Watch the video below.

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Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

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