I became a new house rabbit owner in March when Pancake's (a dwarf lop boy)mum returned to South Africa to live. It was love at first meet and he changed our life and left his mark in our hearts and our house!! Very sadly he died aprox a month ago when he stopped eating and pooing and depsite taking him to the vets for a day he died in my arms early the next morning - much to my desolation. We still trying to understand what we did wrong...
The house was sooo quiet after his loss that we couldn't bear it and we went to a local rescue home and adopted a one year old dward lop male called Muffin. He hadn't been at the resue center for long and he hadn't been a house rabbit so we hoped to train him to live a new lifestyle.
He came to us on the Saturday and was happy to let us stroke him. He took a few days to get used to teh litter tray - but once using it we opened the front door for him to come out and he kept putting his front paws out but not his back. We built some steps for him to climb down but still no luck - so we lifted him out a few times and let him have a proper run in our garden with us. When returning him to teh cage we put him down outside and he ran arounf a bit then used the steps to go back into his cage. On the Thursday we made the mistake of having him neutered - I think the timing was too soon after the move especially as he hadn't been at teh rescue home for long either. Since then he hides in his covered bed area at the back of the cage and we had the hideous experience of having to drag him out of teh cage for a follow up vet appointment after half an hour of trying unsuccessfully to tempt him out on his terms.
Since then it's been a week since we've got him out of his cage - we wanted him to get used to us again and to start feeling safer in his space. He's gradually coming near us again when we put food out for him and he's allowing a bit of stroking but he still doesn't come to teh front of teh cage much unless we shut it and cover it with a towel - which we are doing quite often to help him feel safer.
My concern is that he now hasn't been out of his cage for over a week and while it's an OK size I know we can't keep going like this. Should we just stay patient and let him build his confidence at his pace or is it more important at this stage to lift him to get him out again and realising the outside world isn't all bad and scary?
Any advice would be much welcomed.
Thankyou
Shosie D
The house was sooo quiet after his loss that we couldn't bear it and we went to a local rescue home and adopted a one year old dward lop male called Muffin. He hadn't been at the resue center for long and he hadn't been a house rabbit so we hoped to train him to live a new lifestyle.
He came to us on the Saturday and was happy to let us stroke him. He took a few days to get used to teh litter tray - but once using it we opened the front door for him to come out and he kept putting his front paws out but not his back. We built some steps for him to climb down but still no luck - so we lifted him out a few times and let him have a proper run in our garden with us. When returning him to teh cage we put him down outside and he ran arounf a bit then used the steps to go back into his cage. On the Thursday we made the mistake of having him neutered - I think the timing was too soon after the move especially as he hadn't been at teh rescue home for long either. Since then he hides in his covered bed area at the back of the cage and we had the hideous experience of having to drag him out of teh cage for a follow up vet appointment after half an hour of trying unsuccessfully to tempt him out on his terms.
Since then it's been a week since we've got him out of his cage - we wanted him to get used to us again and to start feeling safer in his space. He's gradually coming near us again when we put food out for him and he's allowing a bit of stroking but he still doesn't come to teh front of teh cage much unless we shut it and cover it with a towel - which we are doing quite often to help him feel safer.
My concern is that he now hasn't been out of his cage for over a week and while it's an OK size I know we can't keep going like this. Should we just stay patient and let him build his confidence at his pace or is it more important at this stage to lift him to get him out again and realising the outside world isn't all bad and scary?
Any advice would be much welcomed.
Thankyou
Shosie D
