PUYALLUP, Wash. (AP) - A boy's bunny that won a blue ribbon at the Western Washington Fair has been stolen, the first theft of a show animal at the fair in at least 20 years, officials said.

RJ, a 1½-year-old orange Netherland Dwarf rabbit, vanished Sunday afternoon. The plastic tie that was used to keep the door shut on his cage had been cut, fair officials said.

The rabbit won a blue ribbon Friday for Stefan Johnson, a member of the Bunny Bunch 4-H rabbit club in Vancouver, Wash., who turned 13 the next day.

He had raised the rabbit from the time it was born at his home in Cowlitz County and, after it vanished, was unable to finish the herdsmanship show. It was the first rabbit he had taken to the fair after showing cavies, or guinea pigs, in the past.

RJ vanished while the owner was playing video games and having a snack in the back of the barn. According to a police report, a juvenile witness said a man left the barn with an orange rabbit but couldn't describe the man, and there were no other leads.

The boy's mother, Cindy Johnson, said Wednesday she was in the barn at the time as a 4-H parent and volunteer but got distracted by a young visitor who was trying to pet the rabbits through the bars of the cages.

"I know I could have stopped it," Johnson said.

When she told him RJ was gone, "he jumped up and nearly ran to the cage to see it himself. He cried."

Fair spokeswoman Karen LaFlamme said no show animal had been stolen during her 20 years of work at the Puyallup Fair, the popular name of the annual exhibition.

"It's hard to tell what happened," LaFlamme said. "It's surprising to me that someone didn't see it happen.