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Time out

Justine

Mama Doe
After bringing the buns in for the winter, they have been having their naughty moments of ripping wallpaper, eating the carpet etc. The usual bun stuff although most of it is Bobby. This morning I found Bobby in the cat's litter tray which is in the back hall by the back door. As that litter is the clumping clay litter, I don't really want them in it. Snowy has never bothered with it before.

Anyway, after getting Bobby out of it, he wandered into their pen and I shut the door and left then in there for half an hour for him to get his mihnd off the litter tray. Do you think buns learn by time outs and will suss out that if they do something they shouldn't, they will be shut in for a little while?
 
After bringing the buns in for the winter, they have been having their naughty moments of ripping wallpaper, eating the carpet etc. The usual bun stuff although most of it is Bobby. This morning I found Bobby in the cat's litter tray which is in the back hall by the back door. As that litter is the clumping clay litter, I don't really want them in it. Snowy has never bothered with it before.

Anyway, after getting Bobby out of it, he wandered into their pen and I shut the door and left then in there for half an hour for him to get his mihnd off the litter tray. Do you think buns learn by time outs and will suss out that if they do something they shouldn't, they will be shut in for a little while?

No they wouldn't think that way!
 
I agree, they just don't have the same thought processes or association that we do and will more than likely just get scared and/or cross at you for changing their routine and there's nothing to say they won't do it again in the future even if they do learn that they get shut away for doing something 'naughty'.

I'd be more inclined to adapt things so that they can't get to anything that will endanger them so that the circumstance doesn't arise, whether that's move the litter tray or change to a non-clumping litter type :)
 
I dont know but i used to do it for Lucky when we first had him (he was a house bun then) but i dont think it helped at all.

We had to change rather than make him fit in with us. It was really hard work and so much easier now he's got his own space where it's rabbit friendly and he can do as he likes.
 
I wouldn't do anything to scare him. I just picked him up out of it, put him down and he wandered into the pen where Snowy was already eating hay.
 
To my way of thinking rabbits just behave like rabbits, it's not naughty it's just not what we want them to do. But why should they change their natural behaviour?

It's up to us to minimize the amount of damage they can do from digging, chewing etc not up to them to change!
 
I wouldn't do anything to scare him. I just picked him up out of it, put him down and he wandered into the pen where Snowy was already eating hay.

In which case even if they could understand, he's not going to learn from it anyway, because as far as he's concerned, he'd already stopped doing something (which as Lily says, is just natural behaviour anyway) and was then shut in just because he happened to wander in a certain direction. He won't draw the association between what he was doing previously and being put in time-out.
 
I think when positive re-inforcement is given they tend to do whatever it was that gave that reaction as they enjoy the attention of being told they are good. So I guess when they do something naughty & try & distract them intot doing something else & then encourage them in that. For example when Indiana & Arrabella started chewing or nibbling the curtain - I gave them an apple stick...its worked but I know that the curtian does have some "smiley chew" marks & if they wanted to chew it they just would. Also this didnt work with a rug Ive got that they just cant resist haveing a dig & chew at......so just removing or closing off areas that are not for bunnies is the only fail-safe way!:roll::lol:
 
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