One one hand, rabbits are known to sometimes faint when they encounter a predator and if they don’t faint, they can be shocked to being immobile to be an easy kill.
On the other hand, rabbits are known to be vicious in attacking a recognized “foe.” Rabbits attacking rabbits…I’ve read that they can be vicious attacking each other. Similarly with cats and dogs they are accustomed to living with…this assumes the rabbit and the cat and dog are about the same size. You can go to Youtube and see videos of rabbits attacking cats.. There’s one video of a rabbit attacking a snake. Actually, there’s at least one really funny video that shows a rabbit humping a cat! Rabbits have tremendously powerful kicks with their hind feet. I’ve read of situations where rabbits have kicked a small dog or cat in the face and broke their jaw. I bought my two Flemish rabbits in mind that their large size would give them more opportunity to defend themselves against feral cats if we ever wanted to leave them in our back yard during the day. I’m hoping my two girls will get to 15 pounds…cat protection at this weight.
As a boy, our family had a pair of New Zealanders. (pretty big rabbits). We also had a beagle. I remember that we had our buck rabbit in the house, and the beagle started hassling the rabbit. The rabbit slapped the beagle in the face with a hind foot. It was a loud smack. The beagle in no way bothered the rabbits after that.
Rabbits can bite. They have two upper and two lower incisors..maybe 1/8 inch in diameter with razor sharp edges. Grab a rabbit by the front part of their body, they can very energetically rapidly scratch you with their hind claws.
With the first instance of having a house rabbit living with us, I was curious about it’s occasional thumping. I put my elbow on the floor, made a fist, and slammed the floor with my fist to duplicate the sound of the rabbit thumping. I was surprised at how hard I had to hit the floor to duplicate the sound of the bunny thumping. Given this force, a bunny should be easily able to protect it against a cat or dog of the same weight using a kick.
Our two 8 month old 12 pound rabbits are of Flemish Giant stock. Flemish rabbits are known supposedly for being gentle and docile, notwithstanding their large size. Well OK, they meet the gentle and docile description until you try to pick them up! They can be very dangerous picking them up as they start energetically scratching your arms with their very powerful hind feet.