Roza has been with us almost two weeks now. It seems as long as I don’t clean her cage with anything other than water and I don’t remove the bulk of her poops, and I don’t take away her litter box, she doesn’t spray (slowly trying to deal with this issue). She is scheduled to be spayed next week, so hopefully that will help. Along with the DIGGING. Now, I just have to get her used to being picked up and swaddled so I can give her her pain medication after her spay in case she won’t take it willingly.
New thing she has now started is getting angry when I’m in the pet room and not paying attention to her. She has part of the room for her living area and the cats have part of the room for their food, litter, and bed area (they are able to come and go, but it is gated off so they have their own space away from the dogs. When I am in the room playing with the cats, or cleaning up after them, she hops around in her cage thumping really loud. Just today, when I was sweeping up the floor in front of the cage, she was hopping around going berserk and then she growled at me pretty loud (I was on the phone with my husband and he even heard how loud it was). She wouldn’t stop until I sat down and stuck my hand in the cage and started petting her. I wanted to finish cleaning so after a few minutes, I closed her back in and she wasn’t as loud, but she was making a light growling or grunting sound and thumping. I’m afraid I’m misreading this, though and maybe she just doesn’t want me in the room at all and she’s telling me to leave. She just puts up with my petting in an attempt to get me to leave.
She does like to be pet, though. Even when I bring her greens in to her, she will leave them be and crawl all over me, nipping my clothes, wanting petting. My husband says that she’s just trying to make up for the lost time she had when she was stuck in the outside hutch for over a year and a half.
I’m just confused, I want her to be happy, and I’m scared that I’m going to walk in and find her dead just like Milly. I actually wake up and check on her a few times per night to make sure she’s still breathing. I’m also wondering if she might be deaf or hard of hearing. She doesn’t respond to any type of audible sound and when I come into the room when it’s dark, and she finally sees me, she seems to jump like she’s startled. I have been thumping the floor with my foot before I come in the room and she seems to face the door and is at ease that she sees I’m coming. She doesn’t respond to verbal calls or loud noises, either, but if I lightly tap on her cage and make a hand gesture, she comes running. How does someone find out if a rabbit is deaf?
Sorry for the long post of gibberish and stupid questions.