So I have two male mini rexes. One loves me, the other lives in seeming terror of me.

Rui always wants to know what I’m doing, he comes for nose rubs, climbs on me, lets me put my face in his, whatever.

Emrys doesn’t trust me at all. He’ll sneak up on me and sniff, or play behind my back or at my feet, but if I make any movement towards him, he runs away as fast as he can and hides. Sometimes when I lay on the ground and talk to him, he’ll come close and sniff at my face or my outstreached hand, and then he’ll jerk away as if I stink and then hightail it outta there. I try to respect that he doesn’t like being picked up, but sometimes I have to, for nail trims and things like that. Then it ends up being a race around the apartment with me blocking off all the hiding spots until I finally corner him. And he looks so terrified, I feel terrible, but I don’t know what else I could do. If I try to bribe him with food, he’ll go for it, but as soon as my hand comes near he dashes off, and if he has to leave the treat, he does. I try to give him a gently stroke every now and then to get used to me touching him and show him that I’m not going to hurt him.

He’s a pretty happy bunny otherwise, he runs around the apartment at top speed, binkies, he likes to play obstacle course and dash and jump around things. He absolutely adores his big brother Rui and follows him constantly. It seems like Rui has figured out that if he hangs out around me, Emrys won’t annoy him so much. I wonder if the trouble might be that he trusts Rui too much. He won’t try a new food until he sees Rui eat it first. Rui learned how to jump up on the sofa first and then Emrys missed him so much that he tried until he could jump up there too. Sometimes when I’m giving Rui a nose rub, if Emrys’ head is there too he’ll let me rub his nose too.

I can accept it if Emrys never really likes being pet or cuddled, but I really want to know what I can do so that he doesn’t freak out when I try to touch him. I really don’t want to tramatize him.