handling problems :-(

Hi
So my female dwarf bunny was spayed 2 weeks ago and I think she's starting to calm down I hope!

She's always been hard to handle despite being so friendly. I can carry her for about 30 seconds and then she throws a fit and starts kicking like crazy and squirming backwards to get out of my hands :-( it seems like she just doesn't want anything to do with me carrying her anywhere. and its become dangerous because if I'm trying to take her outside to go in her run we have to go down our big staircase and I have had some cloase calls with her trying to get free while walking down the stairs.

Are there any exerises or something that I can do to help teach her to be ok with being carried? She's so sweet I would llike to be able to carry her around like I did with my old bunny.(put down at 13 a few months ago)

Thanks in advance for any tip!

Bunnies by nature don't generally like being picked up - the only way that would happen to them in the wild is if they had been caught by a predator!

Ours don't really like it either but have become better over time as obviously you can't avoid having to handle them for bum checks etc. We find with Fudge we have to hold her under her bum as normal, but make sure we have a loose hold around her shoulders with the other hand as she has a tendency to make flying leaps for our shoulders. For a long time I wouldn't have considered carrying her down the stairs though - we used to bring a carrier up and use that to move her around - it was a hassle but I would never have forgiven myself if she'd escaped and hurt herself while I was carrying her.

I think they're just all different and some will be more comfortable with it than others but I'm afraid I don't have any real tips for making her like it more! Just time and patience I guess.

I'd teach her to hop into a carrier to be taken to the run and back... it's not worth the struggle of picking her up and carrying her and she could hurt herself badly by the sound of it.

If you really, really must carry for anything, then Ludo will be carried quite calmly if you cradle your arms together with him in and let him put his head in the gap between your arms and your body near your elbow, his head must be hidden. He likes his feet to feel firmly on my arms but won't allow more than one steadying hand on his back, he doesn't like to feel too 'grabbed'. Still, I wouldn't really recommend it for stairs regularly, as both arms are used carrying him, one for under him, one to support his back, so if there was a fall then it would be bad for the human!

Having had a similar problem myself, my vet then showed me how to hold bunny with his back against my tummy in a kind of upright position, with one arm across bunny under her front legs, and the other hand supporting under bunny's bottom. I now find this an ideal position for wriggly bunnies that don't like having their nails trimmed, as one person can hold, and all 4 feet then are fully accessible for the person trimming.