I'm not saying they don't have feelings, just that we shouldn't confuse our feelings with theirs because their perception of the world is quite different to ours - mainly because we have imagination and they don't. Memory and imagination are quite different things. I know my animals remember feeding time for instance, but they can't sit there and imagine what it might be like to eat something they haven't eaten before, like we can.
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How do you know your rabbit is happy?
- Thread starter DDD
- Start date
I'm not saying they don't have feelings, just that we shouldn't confuse our feelings with theirs because their perception of the world is quite different to ours - mainly because we have imagination and they don't. Memory and imagination are quite different things. I know my animals remember feeding time for instance, but they can't sit there and imagine what it might be like to eat something they haven't eaten before, like we can.
SOAD
Wise Old Thumper
He didn't imagine anything - it was an instinctive reaction, same as if we think a huge spider's on our leg and it's just a piece of hay - we don't sit there see the hay and think 'hmmm - I wonder if that could be a spider?' in an imaginative way - there's no time for imagining when you are reacting instinctively.
Rabbits often sleep with their eyes open too - I can tell when I've startled my 'awake' bunnies from sleep - Benny does it especially
You have to have imagination to think you see a spider when you don't. If you're seeing things that aren't there it just means you're crazy, halucinating or imaginaing things. If there is no imagination there, there would be no reason to be spoked about things, that are not there.
Don't take this the wrong way, but I think you're thinking that we're more complexed than an animal. Just because they don't talk our language, doesn't mean they don't talk any or feel anything. In days gone by people use to class Aborigines as none human and unable to feel things, people laugh at that now. Yet how do we know they don't feel anything? (buns/animals not aborigines
I'm not saying they don't feel anything - I'm saying many of the things we feel they do because of emotions or whatever you want to class them as could have perfectly normal scientific answers or be down to their animal instincts. We just don't really have any way to know
Humans do it too - we often drool after 'fit' people because it's our 'instinct' to mate with a healthy strong partner to continue our genes, we preen ourselves to look good to attract said partners, lots of our behaviours are totally natural instinctive things to further us as a species
Most just like to think we're above animals!
SOAD
Wise Old Thumper
I'm not saying they don't feel anything - I'm saying many of the things we feel they do because of emotions or whatever you want to class them as could have perfectly normal scientific answers or be down to their animal instincts. We just don't really have any way to know
Humans do it too - we often drool after 'fit' people because it's our 'instinct' to mate with a healthy strong partner to continue our genes, we preen ourselves to look good to attract said partners, lots of our behaviours are totally natural instinctive things to further us as a species
I would say I would agree with that :thumb: .
carasblanco
Mama Doe
His scent was not in any of the rooms my rabbit went into. He never went into any of those rooms. My rabbits have their own room, access to the entire house, but only hang out in the 1st floor rooms at the front of the house. Its a very old house old fashioned with many many tiny rooms and they just don't go into any of them-LaRue was looking everywhere for her partner, it was completely out of character.
There is a lot of association with imagination to memory in my experience
abbymarysmokey
Wise Old Thumper
IMO most mammals (including us) have similar 'feelings' and emotions.
It's just our perception of the world that differs.
I read a book recently written by someone who inspects slaughter houses. This person learnt so much about the world perception of cows and other herd animals just by observing them day after day. (I can't remember what it was called, but it was really interesting).
Amy
It's just our perception of the world that differs.
I read a book recently written by someone who inspects slaughter houses. This person learnt so much about the world perception of cows and other herd animals just by observing them day after day. (I can't remember what it was called, but it was really interesting).
Amy
Well my take is, last night I was in the bath. I noticed a daddy long legs flying round and round so I thought I would leave him til I got out the bath. Anyway I felt a tickle on my leg and submerged my knee into the water and the daddy long legs was on my knee and I drowned him I felt so sad it was unreal.
So what I am trying to say is dont under estimate the mind of the bunny they do have so much imagination and intelligence as I didn't have regarding the daddy long legs - I am now a murderer
I felt so sad it was unreal.So what I am trying to say is dont under estimate the mind of the bunny they do have so much imagination and intelligence as I didn't have regarding the daddy long legs - I am now a murderer
carasblanco
Mama Doe
So the supposed inability to imagine, makes happiness impossible as we know it?
BTW isn't oxytocin and endomorphins (sp) what is released with happiness, scientifically for people? I know rabbits release oxytocin, I wonder if anyone knows if they release endomorphins?
Well my take is, last night I was in the bath. I noticed a daddy long legs flying round and round so I thought I would leave him til I got out the bath. Anyway I felt a tickle on my leg and submerged my knee into the water and the daddy long legs was on my knee and I drowned him
So what I am trying to say is dont under estimate the mind of the bunny they do have so much imagination and intelligence as I didn't have regarding the daddy long legs - I am now a murderer
So what I am trying to say is dont under estimate the mind of the bunny they do have so much imagination and intelligence as I didn't have regarding the daddy long legs - I am now a murderer
But would a rabbit stop and not eat a piece of grass that had an insect on it? They don't have the same thought processes as us but lots of people like to apply human emotions onto them
This is a really interesting thread, which raises lots of points. My experience is that haveing only had Bertie for 7months, and him being an indoor bun, there has been a profound change in his behaviour in the last 2 weeks, that have made me think that he's happier now than he was.
We went on hols a month ago, prior to that, Bertie was quite timid, a bit uneasy, and not too relaxed. He Binkied, flopped etc, but I was never sure that he was happy, and gave serious thought to getting him a friend (that thought is still present).
After 2 weeks boarding, outside in a hutch, he came home, and within 3days, had transformed into an affectionate completely approachable lovealble bun that is now happiest on my feet, having is his nose stroke, tummy rubbed, being tickled, playng tag with his ball, I could go on....!
There could be so many factors, and i wouldn't want to put the change into human emotions, but my little guy is so full of life and joy that I am astounded. His relationship with my OH prior to the holiday was, well, slightly aggrssive, and now he runs to meet him when he gets in from work.
I'm obviously delighted that he seems to have settled in, and equally as perplexed by it. The posts here have given me some insight, and just as happiness is a chemical reaction in us humans, could it be that different chemicals are able to produce a similar effect on out buns?
We went on hols a month ago, prior to that, Bertie was quite timid, a bit uneasy, and not too relaxed. He Binkied, flopped etc, but I was never sure that he was happy, and gave serious thought to getting him a friend (that thought is still present).
After 2 weeks boarding, outside in a hutch, he came home, and within 3days, had transformed into an affectionate completely approachable lovealble bun that is now happiest on my feet, having is his nose stroke, tummy rubbed, being tickled, playng tag with his ball, I could go on....!
There could be so many factors, and i wouldn't want to put the change into human emotions, but my little guy is so full of life and joy that I am astounded. His relationship with my OH prior to the holiday was, well, slightly aggrssive, and now he runs to meet him when he gets in from work.
I'm obviously delighted that he seems to have settled in, and equally as perplexed by it. The posts here have given me some insight, and just as happiness is a chemical reaction in us humans, could it be that different chemicals are able to produce a similar effect on out buns?
SOAD
Wise Old Thumper
I agree with that - our bodies produce these chemicals to encourage us to do things (like - sorry if it sounds crude - but we enjoy sex and that makes us want to reproduce!) same as they react to heat etc. in a negative way to stop doing things that may harm us.
I was reading it more as 'mental' happiness though - whether rabbits can be 'happy' with their life or long for better conditions etc.
This is a good point. If an animal is born in confinement, raised in cofinement (let's say a 3ft hutch!) and never saw anything else, how would it know that it could be having a different quality of life (good or bad...in a bunny haven or an animal testing place for e.g.) how could it know if it's happy or not with its' situation. This would apply to a human as well.
That said, i think that us humans can be unhappy through not living our lives to their full potential, even if we don't know what that is, so could a bun have that unfulfillment feeling too? ....now my head's starting to hurt :lol:
Yes I think they could, because of their instincts.
I know
Are you being serious? It was a daddy long legs :shock:
ok, so the daddy long legs protection society are going to come down on me, but can you honestly say you haven't ever killed anything? I know I do, like the slug I threw off the hutch the other day and then accidentally trod on or the ant crawling past
And if I'm in the house alone with a spider, I'm sorry it dies... I can't put them out like my OH does and I can't live with them so it's a newspaper and shut my eyes job.
OMG! You dont do you
No way could I kill an insect it is murder in my eyes I felt so sad and talked to myself in the beath for 10 mins or so abot it cos my o/h didn't seem to care much 
