Hi everyone :wave:
Really hope someone might help me with some bunny behaviour frustrations we are having with our boy Bigwig (the handsome man opposite). He is now 9 months old and we have had him for 3 months. He is also neutered. We have always had issues with handling him but thought that we were overcoming this.
He has the attic room to himself through the day, along with his cage, and gets attention in the morning and in the evening - either with us sitting in his room with him or by carrying him downstairs to run around. He has a lot of freedom.
Despite all our efforts, poor BW seems constantly angry. He's very huffy, stomps ALOT, can get viscious when picked up (we pick him up correctly and without picking him up, he loses the opportunity to run downstairs and sit with us to watch TV etc.) but on the other hand he LOVES ear scratches and very occasionally enjoys the odd binky and spends time when he is with us totally stretched out, which would suggest contentment!
We feel now like we've taken a huge step back. Only a week or so ago we felt we'd made a breakthrough when he started jumping onto the sofa for scratches. However, over the last few days he's totally turned on us, refusing to come out from under the sofa bed, even with the bribery of food! He seems so down in the dumps and we cannot get near him to put him to bed. Tonight he gave me a light nip when i went to scratch him (which he normally loves).
In a nutshell, we're at a loss. He's a total connundrum! Are we expecting too much? Is this all normal? Is it possible for a rabbit to have an anger issue?!
I have just purchased a collapsable rabbit run in order to restrict his area in the attic in the hope that preventing him hiding under the sofa bed will encourage him to interact more with us and prevent the arguements over going back into his cage.
Also, we think he'd like a friend and are ready to start looking for one, partly for company and partly in the hope that a mate would bring him out of his shell, but now we're worried about whether this would have the desired effect or might even exasperate the problem.
Sorry to go on. We really are worried for our depressed and angry little friend and would love some input from some experienced owners on the matter.
Thanks in advance
Really hope someone might help me with some bunny behaviour frustrations we are having with our boy Bigwig (the handsome man opposite). He is now 9 months old and we have had him for 3 months. He is also neutered. We have always had issues with handling him but thought that we were overcoming this.
He has the attic room to himself through the day, along with his cage, and gets attention in the morning and in the evening - either with us sitting in his room with him or by carrying him downstairs to run around. He has a lot of freedom.
Despite all our efforts, poor BW seems constantly angry. He's very huffy, stomps ALOT, can get viscious when picked up (we pick him up correctly and without picking him up, he loses the opportunity to run downstairs and sit with us to watch TV etc.) but on the other hand he LOVES ear scratches and very occasionally enjoys the odd binky and spends time when he is with us totally stretched out, which would suggest contentment!
We feel now like we've taken a huge step back. Only a week or so ago we felt we'd made a breakthrough when he started jumping onto the sofa for scratches. However, over the last few days he's totally turned on us, refusing to come out from under the sofa bed, even with the bribery of food! He seems so down in the dumps and we cannot get near him to put him to bed. Tonight he gave me a light nip when i went to scratch him (which he normally loves).
In a nutshell, we're at a loss. He's a total connundrum! Are we expecting too much? Is this all normal? Is it possible for a rabbit to have an anger issue?!
I have just purchased a collapsable rabbit run in order to restrict his area in the attic in the hope that preventing him hiding under the sofa bed will encourage him to interact more with us and prevent the arguements over going back into his cage.
Also, we think he'd like a friend and are ready to start looking for one, partly for company and partly in the hope that a mate would bring him out of his shell, but now we're worried about whether this would have the desired effect or might even exasperate the problem.
Sorry to go on. We really are worried for our depressed and angry little friend and would love some input from some experienced owners on the matter.
Thanks in advance