📅 Monday, 24 August 2026 · No. 146

Superb Teefs and Mouf: Ten Out of Ten

📓 My Tracker · ✎ 6 min · by Azmi in Meknes

Azmi's note My personal log from Meknes, not vet advice. Just what I did and saw tonight.

Good evening from my living room in Meknes, and welcome to the most serious award ceremony I host all year. I am Azmi, your presenter, your judge, and your entire audience, and tonight we honor a set of teeth so magnificent that I nearly dropped my camera. Presenting BILL and his superb teefs and mouf for inspection, and I want the record to show that I checked twice, because greatness deserves a second look.

Form: impeccable. Gnashers: magnificent. Score: ten out of ten bun points, with no deductions and no appeals allowed. I have seen a lot of rabbit mouths over the years, leaning in close with a sprig of hay as a bribe, and this one stopped me mid-sentence. Straight, white, even, and framed by the most confident little mouth I have ever photographed.

Tonight’s program: one category, one legend

Every award show needs a program, so here is mine. Category one: Best Front Teeth in a Leading Role. The nominees are BILL, BILL in slightly different lighting, and BILL again because nobody else came close. I opened the envelope, I paused for effect, and I read the only name that made sense. The crowd in my kitchen went wild, by which I mean one rabbit thumped and another one asked for dinner.

I am not a vet, so anything about teeth or diet I run past my vet in Meknes first, and I mean that every single time I write about mouths and chewing. What I can tell you as an owner is what I see in my own home: my rabbits that chew hay through the day tend to keep the kind of even, tidy front teeth I love to photograph, and BILL is the poster face for that habit.

The red carpet walk

Picture the red carpet, which in my house is a faded rug with a chewed corner. BILL arrives, nose up, ears at a jaunty angle, pausing exactly where the light lands. I crouch with my phone, whispering the silly voice I reserve for photo sessions, and he lifts his chin like he knows this is his moment. Holy gnashers indeed, I said out loud, and then I said it again because the first time did not do it justice.

Photographing teeth is harder than it sounds. You need patience, good light, and a rabbit willing to sit still for three seconds, which is roughly a year in rabbit time. My method is simple: I sit on the floor, I let the rabbit sniff the camera, and I wait for the yawn or the curious sniff that shows the front teeth. BILL needed no tricks. He posed like he had read the program in advance.

The acceptance speech I imagine for him

If BILL gave a speech, I think it would go like this. Thank you to the hay rack, always full, always fresh. Thank you to the morning refill crew, meaning me, half asleep with a bag of hay in one hand. Thank you to the chew toys, the tunnel edge, and the willow ball that never stood a chance. And thank you to the judges, who are also me, for recognizing excellence when it flashes in the sunlight.

I keep a little dental admiration log because comparing photos month to month is the easiest way I have found to notice small changes early. My current notes read like a strange diary: front teeth straight and white, excellent; hay pile refilled morning and night, logged daily; photo check monthly against this very standard. When I look back at older entries, the pattern is plain, and BILL sits at the top of the page as the benchmark every other mouth gets measured against.

Front teeth: straight, white, even, and very photogenic
Hay habit: steady chewing through the day, refills logged morning and night
Photo standard: monthly close-up compared against this BILL portrait

What the judges wrote in their notes

The judges, again only me with a cup of tea, wrote the following. Alignment: superb, with the two upper front teeth meeting the lowers in a neat line. Color: clean white with no staining that I could see in daylight. Attitude: ten out of ten, because a rabbit that lets you admire his mouth without turning around deserves full marks. I signed the card, I stamped it with a paw print drawn from memory, and I filed it in the notebook I keep by the couch.

That notebook has become unexpectedly useful. When I wrote about my notes on an older rabbit with teeth changes and sniffle watching, I found myself flipping back to BILL for comparison, just to remind my eyes what my own baseline looks like. Old rabbits and young rabbits show their age differently around the mouth, and having one clear standard photo saves me from guessing.

Hay does that, or so my evening self tells my morning self while sweeping up the evidence. I buy it by the bag, I stuff it into racks and corners and cardboard tubes, and my lot chew extra in his honor, or at least that is the story I tell when I find hay in my shoes. If you want the unglamorous version of this award, it is mostly me refilling racks and fishing strands out of the laundry. The glamorous version is BILL, chin up, glowing.

My hay station itself went through several clumsy drafts before it worked, and I wrote up the whole messy process in my notes on setting up a hay station for picky eaters. The lesson that stuck: keep the hay where the rabbits already hang out, keep it fresh enough that it smells sweet, and keep a standard photo like this one so you can see what steady chewing looks like over time.

Closing ceremony and trophy presentation

So here is the trophy, which is a willow ring tied with a ribbon, presented with full ceremony on the rug. BILL sniffed it, chewed one corner, and walked away, which I choose to read as humble. The benchmark stands. My lot keep chewing, I keep photographing, and the standard all teefs are judged against remains exactly where it belongs: front and center, ten out of ten, in the paws of a rabbit who makes dental admiration feel like a celebration rather than a chore.

Next month I will retake the photo in the same spot by the window, compare it against tonight’s winner, and update the log with whatever I see. If anything ever looks off to me, my plan is the same as always: call my vet in Meknes and let a professional decide what it means. Until then, the crown stays where it is, the hay rack stays full, and BILL keeps smiling that superb, unmistakable, ten-out-of-ten smile.

🐰

Written by Azmi

I track my rabbits' diet, weight and naps to see what works. Photos are mine, mess included. Say hi on the contact page.

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