I know something's wrong when I call our rabbit's name before feeding her. She doesn't come to the mesh, in fact she doesn't do anything. All I can see is an unidentifiable lump of fur through the door to her sleeping quarters. One dead rabbit. It gives me the heebie-jeebies. I'm not good with Dead Things.

Thankfully, the kids are at a friend's house. Being the only adult around here, I'll at least have to look at her to ascertain that she's truly deceased and not in some deep slumber. I peer in. She's dead all right. It's odd that you can glimpse great clusters of strung-up rabbits in French markets and not bat an eyelid, yet come over all shuddery and, frankly, quite bilious at witnessing one which your family has named and nurtured and is now splayed out on its back.

It shocks me how gutted I am. I mean, I wouldn't imagine that the death of a rabbit ranks alongside the loss of a dog that you've had for a decade or more. Although I have never owned a dog, I sense that a bond develops that one can never enjoy with a rabbit. You don't see elderly men on park benches happily chewing the fat with their friends and a couple of rabbits on leads. Dog owners shape their lives around their pets. They take holidays only to places where dogs are permitted, which seems tragically limiting; they groom them, enter them for shows and pick up their deposits with carrier bags. A rabbit rarely achieves such status. People joke about making them into slippers. Someone who exhibits disturbing degrees of sexual jealousy is called a bunny-boiler. It shames me now that I was angry at our pet for gnawing our vinyl collection (although, as J pointed out, only the classical ones, thankfully'), and subsequently banished her from our house.

A friend drops by who has lost numerous cats in road accidents and is therefore well-practised in such matters. We dig a huge hole in the garden. My pal warns me that foxes might dig up the corpse, and tells me an anecdote from Laura Marney's No Wonder I Take A Drink: woman's dog runs into the house, carrying a dead rabbit. It's recognised as a neighbour's pet, and in panic is washed, blow dried and put safely back in its hutch, in the hope that its owner will assume it died of natural causes. Distressed owner announces that, as some kind of hideous prank, a sicko has dug up the pet that they'd just buried. My friend also points out, "Surely a major aspect of letting children have pets is to help them understand the cycle of life and death?" No, surely we've just given into nagging, simple as that. If I'd never had children, I certainly wouldn't have owned a small furry animal - much as I wouldn't have amassed stacks of knackered bikes in the garage or a collection of Warhammer books. Another friend suggests that I tell the children something terrible has happened - "really lay on the grief," she says gleefully - to the extent that the announcement of bunny's demise comes as a blessed relief. This seems a tad heartless, like phoning a partner and intimating that you've smashed the car into the house, when you've really just sat on their glasses.

I know, too, that my daughter in particular will take the news badly, however I dress it up. Briefly, I toy with checking out the pet shop to see if they have a similar-looking model. Yet a close match is unlikely. Our rabbit had - in fact, still has at this point - a vast double chin and ongoing weight problem. We'd thought of installing a larger, more robust version of a hamster wheel to encourage her to work off surplus ounces. After all, we're constantly bombarded with statistics about overweight children. However, our rabbit was only two years old, and we didn't want to encourage weight issues at such a young age.

I also consider telling my daughter that the rabbit leapt from the hutch when I left the door open, and will now be frolicking with unlimited boyfriends in the hills. Yet this doesn't feel right either, as it lays the blame firmly on me. Plus, when surfing for advice, I read about a woman whose 10-year-old son's beloved bunny was savaged by a dog, and subsequently put down by the vet. Wishing to minimise his distress, the woman told her son that the creature had merely "run away". And now he spends hours scouring the garden, calling bunny's name.

All day, I can hardly work for thinking about telling the kids and fretting about foxes. They come home and yes, there are tears. But grief swiftly subsides as they bicker over whether we're getting a guinea pig or a kitten.

Contact Fiona at hello@fionagibson.com