This adorable bunny from Natick is becoming a worldwide celebrity
Molly Prottas, a 30-year-old Natick resident, just got her master’s degree in social work, so she’s been busy writing cover letters and applying to jobs. But all of that is on hold for a few days while she deals with the fact that her pet rabbit, Wally, has become a worldwide celebrity.
After The Daily Mailposted an article about Wally and his uniquely cute ears, the articles and media requests came pouring in. Everyone from the Huffington Post to Mashable has written about Wally, thanks to Prottas’s Instagram account, @wally_and_molly. CNN has been in contact, and Prottas was invited to stop by the Good Morning America studios.
Prottas took a few minutes to talk to Boston.com about how Wally’s fun personality and a little help from some high school students made the adorable English Angora rabbit a star.
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How crazy have the last couple of days been for you? How Insta-famous was Wally before all of this started blowing up?
I had never used Instagram before January when I got Wally. I didn’t even know people had pages for pets. I worked with kids at a high school, and they helped me with Instagram because I didn’t even know what a hashtag was. I kind of joked with them — “I’m going to get famous!’’ — and jokingly acted sad when my photos of Wally only got eight likes. But slowly it started building.
Later some pet profiles with 10,000 followers posted a photo of Wally, and I got some more followers. But yesterday it blew up, and it’s been fun and overwhelming. People really enjoy Wally, so I like that it brings happiness to people. It’s been fun kind of letting my creativity [with the captions] run wild.
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So you got Wally in January. Was that at a local pet shop or did you have to go somewhere special?
My rabbit before Wally passed away, and I started just looking for different kinds of breeds of rabbits to see what was out there. I saw these Angoras, and they looked like puffy clouds, just incredible. And they have great personalities.
I was looking for one, not having a lot of luck, and then a couple days before New Year’s Eve, I found this small farm in Maine. Wally was one of two brothers that had been unclaimed from a litter in July, so I drove up on New Year’s Eve and got him. He has an amazing personality and is so different than my other rabbit. It’s been really great having him.
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Do you have to do any special styling to make his ears look like that?
Angoras don’t have fur like typical rabbits, they have wool. Their fiber is often used for making yarn and things like that. Grooming Angoras when their wool is long is a difficult process, and it was really stressful for Wally. I couldn’t keep up with the wool matting, and it started pulling on his skin, so it was recommended to me that I trim down his wool. It’s good for the rabbit to keep a shorter coat, especially in summer.
I decided to keep his wool short, and I don’t do anything to his ears — I brush his ears and cut a little bit in the back, but otherwise I leave them alone and trim his body.
In the last 24 hours, what’s the most surreal thing that’s happened to you in terms of media contacting you?
CNN did reach out to me asking for photos, but Good Morning America has asked me to stop by the studio at some point, so that’s crazy.
Thanks for talking to me. I’ll send you and Wally a link to the article.
He’s going to be so excited. He’s going to be bragging about it on Instagram. We’ll have to work on his humbleness.
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