Dogs & Rabbits - can they live together?

Zahirre said:

Oh, I think I know my dog well enough to know that there isn't a bad bone in her body. She's not even inquisitive of the buns, she's more wary!

I think it's totally wrong to assume that ALL dogs have it in them to attack buns or other animals. It's like suggesting that ALL cats will attack bunnies or ALL dogs will attack cats.

I see children and dogs as different... I won't leave Phoebe alone with Sammy as I know Phoebe could do her some serious damage even by accident and Sammy could catch her with her claws quite easily or knock her over.

I will bet my life on Sammy never, ever hurting any of our animals.

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I didn't say they all could, I said you don't KNOW whether your dog could. No-one knows what is going on inside their dogs head. Dogs are pack animals and will fight if they feel their position in the pecking order is under threat.

No matter what you THINK you know about your dog, you do not KNOW everything about them. Just like a mother never thinks her kid is a psychopathic killer, even when they are, because they are too close and too emotionally invested to take an objective view.

Stator said:

I didn't say they all could, I said you don't KNOW whether your dog could. No-one knows what is going on inside their dogs head. Dogs are pack animals and will fight if they feel their position in the pecking order is under threat.
No matter what you THINK you know about your dog, you do not KNOW everything about them. Just like a mother never thinks her kid is a psychopathic killer, even when they are, because they are too close and too emotionally invested to take an objective view.

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With respect..... thats nonsense
My dog wouldnt fight if his life depended on it..

Stator said:

I didn't say they all could, I said you don't KNOW whether your dog could. No-one knows what is going on inside their dogs head. Dogs are pack animals and will fight if they feel their position in the pecking order is under threat.

No matter what you THINK you know about your dog, you do not KNOW everything about them. Just like a mother never thinks her kid is a psychopathic killer, even when they are, because they are too close and too emotionally invested to take an objective view.

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Bit of a radical comparison there!

Maybe a mother doesn't recognise that her child is a psychotic killer but there are signs. If a dog is about to become aggressive and destructive, there will be signs.

My OH knows enough about dog behaviour to recognise those signs. We've had a Greyhound before who exhibited signs of becoming aggressive towards Phoebe - he had to go back to the RSPCA and was subsequently rehomed to a family who had no children.

There are always signs when a human or animal is about to go against what you think you know about them. If I, or my OH saw those signs with Sammy, she wouldn't be allowed to be alone with any other animal in my house. I love all of my animals so I am always aware of changes in behaviour. I know when my buns are ill before they exhibit signs. I know when my rats are about to fight, before they do. I watch and observe every one of my animals so that I know them.

I may not know what they are thinking but as with humans, behaviour and body language is always a huge indicator of what the mind is thinking.

I have kept 3 dogs alongside buns and other animals and have never had a fatality or even an injury and I very highly doubt I ever will.

ETA: Every dog should be taught that their position in the pecking order is the lowest. Sammy has always been taught through reinforcement that she is at the bottom of the pecking order in this house. Where the other animals are concerned, pecking order isn't an issue in my house. They don't recognise pecking order between themselves, only amongst their own species and I've seen behaviour which makes this obvious.

Stator said:

I didn't say they all could, I said you don't KNOW whether your dog could. No-one knows what is going on inside their dogs head. Dogs are pack animals and will fight if they feel their position in the pecking order is under threat.

No matter what you THINK you know about your dog, you do not KNOW everything about them. Just like a mother never thinks her kid is a psychopathic killer, even when they are, because they are too close and too emotionally invested to take an objective view.

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Sorry but if you know your dog well enough you instinctively know their feelings and you know what they are capable of. You know when they are uneasy, scared, threatened, happy, content, hungry etc. I would never leave my dogs unsupervised with my rabbit, I have a fence (with shed and run inside it) to give both bun and dogs security and safety but neither are threatened with the other. I have trained them to feel comfortable with each other.

My cat was introduced to bun this month, cat was more scared of Poppy but thats worked out fine, Poppy was quite interested in her and even had a sniff (separated by the run). As long as your safety conscious and respect all of the animals needs (emotional and physical) I cannot see a problem.

Dogs are not really pack animals any more. To some extent but years and years of domestication means if their owner is ill they don't try and kill him off.
Dogs usually attack because they are scared or in pain. A good owner will know if they are feeling like that.

This subject usually gets a lot of mixed options. I have a lovely 6yo Border Collie who has grown up with cats and bunnies. I trust him 100% he's always been interested but has never chased them. When I muck out the buns enclosure, Spider will follow me in and communicate with him. Ghostie will always go and say hello and Spider pulls an OMG face that something do small is nice to him, the cats are usually quite mean to him! He's such a lovely dog and I genuinely trust him!

helen01 said:

Sorry but if you know your dog well enough you instinctively know their feelings and you know what they are capable of. You know when they are uneasy, scared, threatened, happy, content, hungry etc. I would never leave my dogs unsupervised with my rabbit, I have a fence (with shed and run inside it) to give both bun and dogs security and safety but neither are threatened with the other. I have trained them to feel comfortable with each other.

My cat was introduced to bun this month, cat was more scared of Poppy but thats worked out fine, Poppy was quite interested in her and even had a sniff (separated by the run). As long as your safety conscious and respect all of the animals needs (emotional and physical) I cannot see a problem.

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I partly agree with this... I wouldn't let Sammy and our two outside buns run around outside with eachother free range. Mostly because they are small buns and they are fast, which could make Sammy chase. I don't think it would but I don't want to risk it, even after our latest experience with her telling us they had escaped.

With Bramble, it's different. He's a big boy (bigger than both cats) and he's not a fast mover. Even in the house, the two smaller buns couldn't run about as quickly as they could in the garden which is why it was safer.

I see no problem in having a dog even with smaller buns though, so long as your buns are safely secured in runs or hutches. I wouldn't trust my cats with the rats outside of their cage, but I let them free range when the cats are shut away. The cats wouldn't attack them in their cage but could outside of it.

Same with bunnies, keep them secure and safe and you'll have no problem, even if you had a dog who was prey driven.

Zahirre said:

I partly agree with this... I wouldn't let Sammy and our two outside buns run around outside with eachother free range. Mostly because they are small buns and they are fast, which could make Sammy chase. I don't think it would but I don't want to risk it, even after our latest experience with her telling us they had escaped.

With Bramble, it's different. He's a big boy (bigger than both cats) and he's not a fast mover. Even in the house, the two smaller buns couldn't run about as quickly as they could in the garden which is why it was safer.

I see no problem in having a dog even with smaller buns though, so long as your buns are safely secured in runs or hutches. I wouldn't trust my cats with the rats outside of their cage, but I let them free range when the cats are shut away. The cats wouldn't attack them in their cage but could outside of it.

Same with bunnies, keep them secure and safe and you'll have no problem, even if you had a dog who was prey driven.

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Our old family dog used to sleep with our rabbit, the rabbit even protected her from a feral cat (Bun was bigger than the dog:lol, my old collies were great with my Guinea Pigs and I trusted them 100%. Two of my dogs are young and still learning, they do have a prey-drive (although its settling down), that's why I would never leave my dogs unsupervised...they are still learning and I need to supervise. If you know your dog and you have that 100% trust and both are comfortable with each other then that's different....I just meant my own

Same doggy would chew up our parakeets given half the chance though. It's quite easy to tell that he views them as food. He was fine with a wild rabbit he came across which was suffering with myxi. Indeed he dropped his ball beside it then backed away while looking at the poor thing expectedly. He often tries to get the rats to play with his tennis ball but they're only really interested in picking his teeth and sniffing his bum.:roll: He does not open his mouth when playing with the rats (the photo was a result of him yawning and ratty checking for stuck food).

Zahirre said:

My cats run about the house during the night and therefore can be alone with our dog. I see no problem with this. Bramble has also been left alone, albeit in a pen but still, again I see no problem.

I don't agree that dogs should never be left alone with small animals or children. The only reason I don't leave Phoebe in the same room as Sammy alone is due to Sammy's size - she could knock Pheebs over quite easily. If she was a smaller dog, I'd have no problem with it.

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My dogs are 100% trustworthy however the advice is still never to leave a child alone with a dog.


http://www.thekennelclub.org.uk/item/396


http://www.dogstrust.org.uk/az/c/children/default.aspx#.T0wSPpg5BHg

I have sighthounds and rabbits. You just have to be sensible, and know your dogs and rabbits well. This girl of mine has passed on now, but she was amazing with bunnies. They were like her little children!


Maddy with Islay and Jura by Niseag, on Flickr

My current girls? No way. They can't even behave nicely when the rabbits are in their run.

Stator said:

I just hope you don't find out the hard way that you can't read a dogs mind and you don't actually know what's going on in their heads. No matter how much you think you "know" you pets you never actually know what they're thinking. The people who have a baby mauled by a dog always say they can't believe it because the dog was as good as gold.

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And the people who have had kids mauled by dogs are usually to blame. Dogs are very rarely at fault in those cases.

I have a dog..soon to be up to 2 dogs again..and of course lots of rabbits

of course you can have both..but I would NEVER leave any dog with a rabbit..have to say I am of the view that however lovely, gentle and well behaved a dog is, you can never know when it may just have had enough, be having a bad day or feeling a bit poorly ..or even in play jump and land on a bun..it is not worth the risk. Have them both as pets..but common sense in the safety of the small furries is essential

I have a 4 year old border collie. Shex around the rabbits all the time and is not interested in them.at all!

Of course the two can live happily together, I think people might have a heart attack if they came to my house because all my animals mix, I trust my dog a million percent. My cat and my rabbit were the best of friends and inseperable. Only the owner can answer if their dogs/cats etc are safe with their other animals.

parsnipbun said:

the problem here is that you have no idea how YOUR bunnies will react to a dog (any dog) - and once you have the dog what will you do if one or more of the buns is terrified?

Some of my buns are so alarmed by dogs that they 'freeze' when a friend comes round who has a dog (she doesnt even bring the dog she just smells 'doggy'). They used to love her as she used to bunny sit for me but now they freeze and then run away.

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Yes, some of them are extremely wary of me now, because my clothes smell of dog. The dog, himself, has never been near them. It's Pippin, the wildie, that has had the most marked change. I've barely seen him since getting the dog. When I've been there for a while, the friendlier ones have opened up, but act wary again with the next visit.

My own bun couldn't care less about the dog. She's used to the smell of him and they've been out together, supervised. Unfortunately Howard's going through quite a boisterous phase and would want to play with River if I'd let him. Of course this means he's not allowed off-lead near her. When she's free-range, he isn't allowed out unless on the lead (to train him to be calm around her.) She is allowed to come up to him, though, which she does.
I'll never leave them unsupervised together.....NEVER!! She might be about the same size as him, but it's not worth risking it! They have no need to be together, so aren't.

Here the buns are with Howard when we first got him (so he was 8 weeks old.) They couldn't care less about him, and he wasn't bothered about him. When he got too interested the meetings stopped.




....and a child with a dog!! :shock: :lol: (again...wouldn't leave them together alone!)

I just want to add what I normally add on threads like this. My Flash was killed by the germs my cat gave him when she groomed him senseless and then, knowing her, used her paw to try and control him (paw with nails out- she was likely playing) and the shock it put him into. My cat was a soft wussy cat and she loved the bunnies.

They could be the nicest animal in the world but aggression is not the only way an animal can end up dead.

I don't have a problem with multianimal households, and we have rehomed to them. I do think that common sense needs to prevail though. It only takes a few seconds.

happysaz133 said:

And the people who have had kids mauled by dogs are usually to blame. Dogs are very rarely at fault in those cases.

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I'm not blaming the dog. It's always the owners fault. So if you keep a dog and rabbit together it's always your fault if the rabbit ends up dead, which is always a possibility whether you accept it or not.

Stator said:

I'm not blaming the dog. It's always the owners fault. So if you keep a dog and rabbit together it's always your fault if the rabbit ends up dead, which is always a possibility whether you accept it or not.

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Yes, and it's also a possibility that if I let my child cross the road on his own that he'll get run over. The solution......I don't let him cross alone by supervising him. It doesn't mean that I don't let him cross the road at all.

I'd never leave MY dog with my rabbits alone, she was bred as a rabbiting dog (but failed and was abandoned) so has that instinct. There has been accidents where a bun has escaped and Dotty has alerted me, and also Dotty being let into the garden and trying to play with them whilst they free range.

Although she means no harm (mostly) she is just to boistrous to be allowed to play with such delicate animals :wave:

However if I had a puppy I would raise the pup to know how to behave around the rabbits, I'd still never leave them alone unsupervised but I'd let them out in the garden together for sure :wave: