Am I being targeted by my bunny?

[nirrini]

Hello everyone,

I’m new to this forum and I could really use some help with understanding my bunny. I’ll get right to the point 

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I have a bunny named Luna. Now I have to clear something up though.

Luna is actually a boy. 

We got her when she was one month old and took her to the vet for vaccination and control. Turned out she was to be ’80%’ female. Yet after five months, we learned that Luna was actually male. But because we had grown so accustomed to her name and everything, we decided to not change it and even continued to refer to Luna as ‘her’ and ‘she’ in the female sense. It had grown on my tongue.

To be honest, I don’t care if my bunny is male or female.

Onto her behavior. For a new bunny owner, Luna seems to be the most excited and hyperactive rabbit I’ve ever seen. She’s mostly very content and happy, but I do have encountered some strange behavior. I decided to list them all in one post.

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Behavior 1: Luna will lung for me when I put my hand in her cage. I have to do this sometimes to clear her cage floor of droppings and put them in her toilet. Sometimes when I do this, she just follows my hand and turns around with each movement. But it has often occurred that she bit me, pretty hard even, and caused me to flinch. Even if I cry out ‘ouch!’, she doesn’t seem to understand that she hurts me. The only time I can clear her cage floor in peace is when she’s not in her cage. Which leads me to the next problem…

Behavior 2: When she’s outside, Luna is free to roam the spacious room/blanket-covered carpet and explore. This gives me the chance of cleaning her cage of droppings. However, when I near the cage, Luna will run excitedly to me and do what I call a ‘ballerina pee-pirouette’. Literally, she goes all ballerina mode on me and keeps turning around so that the pee goes in every direction. Including me. How often have I had to change my pants or full outfit because I got pee on me. Now I understand that male rabbits spray their environment to mark their territory but why does Luna only do this around me? She doesn’t do this with my husband. In fact, I seem to be the only human targeted by Luna. Because she does the ‘pee-pirouette’ thing, I have to be on constant guard mode to avoid any more accidents on my clothes. One time Luna even managed to pee on my face and hair after I wanted to clean her cage droppings. She was in the cage at that time. Urinated everywhere except her toilet, which is RIGHT next to her. That day I took a long, long shower…

Behavior 3: I stated in the above post that Luna mainly targets her actions to me. As for my husband, he can cuddle and pet Luna all he wants. Spoil her with snacks and she will be most of the time, soliciting affection and putting her chin on the floor to be pet my him. Now this is the scenario when I try to pet Luna: I stroke her forehead with my thumb, she goes into ‘pet me’ mode and lets me stroke her ears. Then she gets up from lying on the floor and proceed to inspect and sniff my arm thoroughly. Then she grabs my harm with her front paws, tugs at it and sniffs some more. When I picked her up one time after she did this, I saw that Luna’s penis was sticking out. Is my arm some sort of resemblance to a female rabbit? I don’t know. It does seem that Luna is rather dominating my arm for some reason. 

Behavior 4: Luna will grunt at me when I walk across the room or get up from the floor. At first, I thought it was kinda cute. But then she did it again and again, till this day. And only when I walk across across the room. She doesn’t do this with my husband or anyone else for that matter. Again, it’s only directed at me. Why does she do this? I don’t think I’m standing in her way or anything. I pet her quite frequently, yet she is the one running up to me with a loud ‘grmmph!’ and occasionally nipping/biting me. Is it attention-based or more like aggression?

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I understand that my post is very long and I’m sorry to have written it but these are the main things I’m concerned with. There is really no other way than to list them all and just wait for any feedback. I hope I’ve been clear in my explanations. If not, please specify the subject and I’ll try to make define it more.

Any kind of feedback is welcome.

[MissGabbster]

All of those problems sound like they’re hormone related. Once Luna is neutered the behaviors should start to peter out.

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