Local blind guinea pig looks for a victory in Cadbury Bunny Tryouts
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Bunnies dominate the TV, and our minds, as we lead up to the Easter holiday. But one local guinea pig says let's consider another happy fluff ball.
RedBird is a blind guinea pig that's turning her rough start at life into a second chance at fame. She's a finalist in Cadbury's search for the next Cadbury Bunny, and she scurried into KDKA-TV for her air test.
She's brown and white and fluff all over with bunny ears to boot.
"She may be blind but she's all ears," said mom Jennifer Wilson.
RedBird might not see the love, but she'll feel it if you vote for her in this year's Cadbury Bunny contest.
"She's just a happy girl and she loves attention and it was just -- it just seemed natural that she should enter," Jennifer said.
RedBird, her parents Jennifer and Terrance Wilson and her seeing eye guinea pig Pippi can't contain their excitement. The local family says RedBird's story is a glow-up from start to finish.
RedBird was one of more than 30 guinea pigs rescued from a hoarding situation in Baltimore County, Maryland. She then spent five months at the Metropolitan Guinea Pig Rescue until Jennifer saw her.
"When I first saw her on the rescue page, she was so depressed, all she would do was sit and face the wall because she didn't want to interact with anyone," Jennifer said.
But now she's proof that anything's possible.
"Now she loves to run around her cage, we call it running zoomies and sometimes she will jump up in excitement, and that's called popcorning," Jennifer said.
Last year she made it to the finals, later falling short in the competition to get featured in the Cadbury Bunny commercial. But this year, Redbird is pulling out all the stops with extra social media engagement.
"Last year's winner was a cat named Crash from Boise, Idaho. He had one eye and he can do tricks, but this year they are doing it differently," Jennifer said
This year, the contest is a bracket-style. Redbird's first challenger might seem a tough beat. It's a bunny, but RedBird's mom says this all feels so sentimental and fitting that RedBird is on KDKA.
"My favorite commercial when I was growing up was the Cadbury commercial with the clucking bunny and when it would come on, we didn't have a VCR back then, so my mother would yell for me to come from wherever in the house I was and I'd run to the TV and usually it would be on KDKA even, because it was our favorite station, so I'd stand there to watch the bunny. So when they started the tryouts, I really wanted one of my guinea pigs to be the bunny," Jennifer said.
RedBird is just a local girl ready to shine.
"No matter where she places we will always be proud of this little girl she's so amazing look at that she's giving me kisses such a good pig," Jennifer said.
Voting starts at noon on Monday.