Can cottontails really die of fright? That question came up because of our dog Saccy’s predilection for collecting baby rabbits. One morning, I found one lying on its side in the front yard while Saccy snatched another away from a cat which apparently had stolen it.

The dog has an odd habit of simply sitting beside her prey and staring at it. So, I have learned that, whenever I see her gazing intently at something, I need to grab for the rabbit.

After I plucked the one she’d retrieved out from under her nose and took both bunnies inside, I saw another of our cats emerging from the basement, to which they have an outside entrance, with a baby rabbit in her mouth. I had to pursue that cat through the house, shrieking “Drop the bunny!” until she finally complied.

All three of the young rabbits appeared okay after they had dried off from the morning dew inside our cat carrier. Since they seemed large enough to survive on their own, I released them on nearby game commission land where my nephew and I had just released a couple others days earlier. It’s quite possible they will get caught by coyotes instead, but at least I won’t be around to see it.

Another, though, almost seemed to come back from the dead. I found that one beside Saccy early on a Sunday morning looking quite comatose. Although it didn’t appear mauled in any way, only one eye was open, and that eye looked a bit glazed. So, I carried the limp bunny into the house and put it in a box in a warm room—just in case. I thought I felt what might be a faint pulse when I held the baby in the palm of my hand, but it’s often difficult to distinguish one’s own pulse from the rabbit’s in that case.

At any rate, busy with church and lunch, I forgot about the bunny until about 2:00 in the afternoon. When I went to check on it, I found the animal sitting up, regarding me quite calmly.

According to folklore, rabbits can die of fright from a heart attack before predators’ claws or teeth even touch them. However, after a little online research, I learned that cottontails do their own version of playing dead which is called “tonic immobility.” If a predator believes its prey is already deceased, after all, it may become careless, allowing that prey to escape.

In the days since those incidents, I’ve had to rescue more rabbits from the dog, including several that were so small I took them to the wildlife rehabilitation facility mentioned in a previous article instead of releasing them. After seeing a documentary on how the New England cottontail became endangered, I’ve become a bit fixated on saving as many of our eastern cottontails as I can. Or that’s the excuse I give for my softheartedness anyway! But I have to admit that—after a few years of being decimated by coyotes—the rabbit population here seems to have rebounded with a vengeance.

So, do those animals really die of fright? I can’t say for sure but, thus far, the ones I’ve rescued have seemed pretty resilient! None of those handled by what they probably perceive as a big, bad person have succumbed to heart failure, after all. In fact, the aforementioned female cat managed to insert a paw into the cat carrier and scratch one of the smallest bunnies so hard that it bled profusely, and I had to staunch the bleeding with cold water and salve. But even that one was still living when I passed it on to the rehabilitators the following day.

I’m guessing that, due to that tonic immobility thing, people may have assumed the animals had died of fright when they really hadn’t. However, I think many of us humans do allow fear to kill us—not literally but figuratively—before anything actually comes close to biting us!

In extreme examples, such as agoraphobia, people are afraid to leave their houses, giving them not much of a life at all. In less extreme examples, we curtail what could be possible for us due to irrational—and often unchristian— fears. A couple I’ve harped on previously include the fear of failure and the fear of people who are different from us.

But one that I believe reduces an even larger number of us to frozen immobility is the fear of what other people think of us. Introverted types such as myself seem to have a particular problem with that one and a habit of “playing dead” when asked to do things which we believe to be beyond our capabilities simply because we are afraid of being criticized for how poorly we do them. In other words, we give up before anybody even lays a paw on us.

And even less shy types allow themselves to be bound by legalisms that they don’t understand simply because they want to fit in. In a documentary about the Amish I was listening to the other evening, one of the men being interviewed admitted that he didn’t know the reasons for some of the strict standards by which the people in his denomination lived. But, like the rest of us, he wanted the approval of those around him.

Just recently, though, something finally occurred to me which should have been obvious all along. It isn’t going to be other people that I stand before at the final judgment. So, what is important isn’t what they think of me but what God thinks.

In fact, Christ made it quite clear that we shouldn’t allow self-righteous types such as the Pharisees of His day to impose restrictions on us that God hasn’t. That would make us followers of men rather than of God, which is a type of the idolatry which He especially hates. But that “followers of men” label also would apply if we allow unrighteous types to pull us away from our true Leader just because we are afraid of being perceived as too religious.

As a quote which has been attributed to both William Gurnall and G. K. Chesterton puts it, “We fear men so much, because we fear God so little. One fear cures another. When man's terror scares you, turn your thoughts to the wrath of God.”

Timothy obviously was a timid sort, since Paul had to remind him that “the Holy Spirit, God’s gift, does not want you to be afraid of people. . .” (2 Timothy 1:7) I don’t think Paul meant Timothy was afraid of physical harm from those people but of how they would judge him. And, as Paul pointed out, once we stop fearing what people think of us we actually can “love them and enjoy being with them” much more than we did before.

Granted, other people’s opinions could cost us a few jobs or relationships down here. But, in the long run, those opinions are going to be irrelevant.