I have found that my bun is the same way about the penning him down. I discovered that when he gets aggressive with me and I pick him up and put him on his back and hold him and talk softly and pet him he at that point may be realizing I am the boss I have the power to put you on your back and keep you there he has stopped being aggressive towards me when he smells another bun on me. which is about the only time he is aggressive with me.  also he is aggressive when I stick my hand in his house so I quit that ………….by teh way how old is the bun. is he going thru his teenager stage or puppy stage where they change into bunzilla for a few months? it could well be even with being altered they aren’t hormonal but do change into bunzilla for a few months

when she chews the carpet, does she eats the fibers or just pull them up? if she is not eating the fibers, i would let her pull or dig at them as she pleases, as long as they are the squares in her cage, not your carpeting. what kind of chew things does she have? a lot of bad behavior is really just boredom. if my rabbit is kept in her pen longer than she wants, she will start devouring her carpet until i let her out, then she settles down. is she littertrained? how long does she get to run freely in the house?

edited to add:  i would also try to stay out of her area if possible.  try interacting on the floor with her, but out in the open.  do another activity, read a book, watch a movie, and let her come up to you, but ignore her.  the “pushing her head down” is good also, but sometimes for a short time.  it’s not uncommon for me to need to do this once a day with my bun.

^^^oh yes. i have also sprayed areas with a spritz of perfume. it will usually only deter for a couple days at most, but it’s worth a try. if you do that, make sure to not spray inside the cage or xpen area where bun cannot get away form the scent. perfume is only for your area.

I have a bad carpet chewer…Here’s what works for me:

Physically block off the area she is chewing-put a textbook or something heavy she can’t move over where she normally chews. When you observe her looking to go there and chew (or anywhere and chew) give her a phonebook and tell her how good she is for chewing it. To get her started, play with the pages in front of her, or crumple some pages up.

Her boxing your hand: One of mine does this, if you put your hand in the ‘groom me” position, that is a fist, near her chin under eye level. I assume it’s because she does not want to groom me because for some reason, even though she’s low bunny on the totem pole, she thinks shes higher then me (bugger) so I just don’t expect grooming from her. She comes up to explore me, but runs off if you try to pick her up. BUT if I pick her up, and hold her, she’ll sit still for cuddles and do lots of tooth purring. So…anyways, my point here after rambling, you *may* have offended your rabbit by offering your hand for grooming.

Try instead offer your hand to groom her: Put your hand near the ground but maybe six inches above, with an open fist, cupped (c-shaped) your bunny will likely lower his head and then you get to groom him. Rub his nose, cheeks and ears. If he lowers his head flat and grinds his teeth, he LOVES it. This is a good way to bond.

Keep us posted on your progress!!

Hmmm…I forget is she spayed yet? Sounds like she’s got tonnes of energy!! Any chance you can let her out more-maybe burn off some of that energy?

I also have an aggressive bunny.  It sounds to me like the carpet chewing isn’t because your bunny feels like chewing anything at all but because of the position of the cardboard in her pen you mentioned above.  For example, I live in a 3-bedroom townhouse.  My bunny’s home is in my study, one of the smaller bedrooms.  He comes out in the hallway sometimes to explore, and I have a pet gate leaning against the hallway wall.  If there’s enough room for him to crawl between the pet gate and the wall, he’s more than happy to explore it.  But if there isn’t, he will scratch and dig at the carpet until either the gate falls over or I come over and move it.  When there’s enough room, he never scratches at the carpet.  You might want to try moving your cardboard box.  Maybe your bunny is trying to get behind it.

Also, I have never had success by pressing my bunny’s head to the floor.  In fact, my bunny was quite aggressive towards me for about 6 months.  There were two main things that worked.  First, which was already mentioned, spend lots of time alone with your bunny doing something quiet and still, like reading or watching a movie.  Let her crawl all over you, sniff you, nibble you, whatever.  Ignore her.  The second thing that worked for me was bunny kisses.  My bunny wasn’t fond of my until I offered to kiss his nose.  In fact, the first time I tried, he didn’t know what was going on and bit the bridge of my nose.  But the second time worked, and since then, he’s been in love with me.  It’s risky, and you’re going to want to do lots of the first suggestion before you try it, but it did work for me. 

In all desperation, you can always try bribery.  My bunny loves rolled oats so much that he will eat them out of anyone’s hand, even a complete stranger.  You can use this to get close to her.  Just a thought.  Not too much treats, of course, but it works well as bribery.

Chewing the carpet  I used bitter apple to have the buns stop that.  (you can buy it at a pet store.   I thought of giving them a piece of carpeting I would think that would encourge to chew when the buns were out of the cage.  What I did was put cardboard where they would chew as for corners I would put small blocks of 2 X 4’s.  About once a week I get a paint brush dip it in apple juice put some on the edges and they love it.

Making the love you is not good.  Trust me tried when we first got Oreo she would growl  we all had sctratches on us she  just hated everyone (well she was pregnant)    If you try to restrain buns that can get her really stressed out.

I found that cardboard sooo didn’t work to block areas off. Have you heard of NIC Cubes? I use those and they totally work!!