I’m sure it was more traumatic for you than it was for him. My vet doesn’t try to trance anyone if they are doing a nail trim. The vet holds and the vet tech cuts. But I’m sure Albert will be fine. Maybe a little annoyed with you, but fine. What type of hair does he have? Is it wooly? With wooly breeds, you can “pluck”. You just have to make sure the mat or fur being plucked is actually going to release when you tug on it. It doesn’t hurt them if it is meant to come off. Although it does look like you’re just being horrible to them.

I wouldn’t worry too much. I suppose you can’t get a good look at the area since he doesn’t let you touch it. You could see if it looks irritated where she plucked. Like I said, if the fur was meant to come out then it shouldn’t have hurt him.

This reminds me of a similar situation I just has this last Friday. My rabbit vet is an hour away and I wanted to get my rabbits nails trimmed so I call the place here in town that I take our other pets too. My rabbits were mad at me when I brought them home from their nail trims. Kilala kicked her back feet at me and ran away. She didn’t even want a small piece of apple which she loves. Usagi ran away and turned and gave me a sad look. Both were mad at me for 2 days. I really didn’t like taking then to this vet and I seriously thinking of taking them to their normal vet for the next nail trim. I asked if I could go back with them for the nail trim and they seemed to be a little mad about that. Trancing your rabbit doesn’t sound very good to me. If it was me I wouldn’t take him back. I have heard that is not good to do to rabbits but maybe I am wrong? Other than that I wouldn’t worry too much about your bunny I am sure he is fine now.

For nails trims we go to our vet tech, who we love. I always hold Dutchess, I never trance her, and she flips or wiggles every few toes when she wants a break. So I plop her down, give her a few pets and pick her up again. The trance might have been more difficult than the trim and hair. I sometimes will pull a few of Dutchess’ gently if they have a little tangle, and she is not bothered by it. In the future, maybe if you need to use her for a nail trim, just hold him yourself and don’t trance him, and try and give him a good grooming before you go so she won’t need to deal with hair tangles.

Are mats just matted fur?  If so, our vet showed us how to use a flea comb to gently comb out matted fur that had poop stuck in it (it’s kinda like combing a knot out of human hair a little at a time).  He said to make sure to hold the fur between your fingers as much as possible so that there’s no tugging on the rabbit’s skin (apparently rabbit skin is thin and delicate and can tear?).  It worked for us, but definitely takes two to do the job, and doing the bunny burrito thing helped too.