My shelter bun is Powder and he has BAD panic attacks anytime he is locked into a cage – he slams into them, starts panting, jumps into the roof, digs, kicks.. last time I tried (and I only tried a few times) to cage him for any amount of time, I was so scared he was going to hurt himself. Open the door and he’s fine, he’ll stay lounging in a cage all day cause it’s comfy. Needless to say, he’s not a caged rabbit now. But I wonder what he went through in his past 3 years, plus he had 6 months of NO interaction (well, limited to feed/water them pretty much) in the shelter cause he was pretty much written off as “unadoptable” due to him being a REW, so they had no time to spend with him versus the “adoptable” buns.

Stickers isn’t from a shelter, but she had a bad start (special needs child’s pet, came to me scared to death with sticker glue all over her neck from where the kid put stickers on her to make her “pretty”… don’t blame the kid, but shame on the parents for that) – she’s so skittish and scared and breaking trust with her is very easily done and not easily forgiven. First day I had her, she peed herself in fear of me for just crouching down nearish her (she had plenty of room to bolt, she just was too scared to even do that). She is beyond scared of strangers and even after so long with her, she doesn’t trust me anywhere near enough to think I won’t hurt her. I have to act like I am trying to not spook a wild deer that came to eat out of my hand to do anything to her (move slow, steady, no sudden moves at all and talk softly to her). Can’t even walk in the same room as her without her bolting, unless you speak comfortingly to her before you step into the room or get up.

So, yes I think bunnies can suffer mental problems from abuse/neglect. All animals can. I was reading a story the other day about Michael Vicks dogs that got adopted and one of them got adopted by a radio host. The rescued dog has to keep his blankie with him for comfort, or he has panic attacks (he drags it around in his mouth, it is REALLY cute). To get outside, the rescue won’t bark, the other dog in the house barks for him. When someone scares the rescue, the other dog will stand in front of him and bark/growl for him. It is adorable, but sad. And a result of the abuse the poor baby suffered.

Fascinating idea.
I know, from personal experience, that dogs behave this way. There’s been a stray running around lately, and you can tell she’s been abused =\
Rabbits are pretty smart, I think they’re at least on the same level as some dogs, so I see no reason they wouldn’t be affected the same way. There’s certainly plenty of anecdotal evidence.

Interesting topic!! I haven’t had much experience with shelter/abused rabbits, our shelters don’t see many of them.

I think rabbits would experience it as much as any dog, cat, etc. would. One of my dogs came from an abusive home and she still shows signs almost 5 years later. When she first came to us she was scared of the newspaper, walking too fast/hard, and saying no. She didn’t even know how to be petted :/

Reaching the Animal Mind by Karen Pryor would probably interest you. It’s a fascinating book by the inventor of clicker training. I bring it up because I think I remember from that book that she explains about the deepest, most fundamental part of all animal brains (humans too) is the reptilian portion. It’s there that we learn a very strong basic response to a stimulus, and it’s usually negative. Kind of what keeps us from putting our hand on a hot stove twice.
What she describes is that once a rabbit or other animal has been conditioned by a negative association, it is one of the hardest things to Undo. It gets very deeply ingrained. So the reactions of bunnies in shelters to the various negative stimulus (a sound, a hand coming at them in a certain way, etc.) will provoke their originally learned response, usually equally negative. The trick to clicker training is to create a new stimulus, even if similar, that gives them a reward, so they learn a new and positive expectation. Unfortunately, it’s really hard or impossible to erase the bad, but you can teach them to override it with a new good one. I think this may apply to your observations.

I always thought her methods of positive reinforcement and reward training would work wonders on humans and should be done more often for us!