Luna comes when I call her, but not every time. She also begs/sits up for treats, and targets only the two spots in the room where I “hide” her treats. If Munchie is responding to the click of your fingers, I think clicker training would work well with her .

Practice practice practice! Time is your best tool for teaching tricks. Olaf can spin, run through his tunnel, jump up, and we’re now working on placing a stick in a bowl. The clicker training is a great way to train your rabbit but you really need to make sure they relate the sound of the click to getting a treat. Sit on the floor with them and click once, then offer a tiny treat. Do this every day for at least a week. Once they know the sound means something good, then start small with easy tricks and use the click-and-treat as the reward. Only train one trick at a time so it isn’t confusing. Some rabbits learn faster than others. Good luck!

I’ve been doing clicker training with Amelia, she knows touch (touches her nose to my hand) spin, kisses (bumps her nose on my lips) and through

Not any party tricks, but practical ones. I have a disability, and it’s much easier to care for Breintje now that he’s trained. I trained with treats, because he’s very food-orientated. He knows the following commands, starting with his name “Breintje, ….”.

– ..hokje”: Jump into your cage! I always use this when I’m about to go to bed or when I’m leaving the house. He knows that he has to jump into his cage and that he can expect a treat. He also knows that the cage will be closed then, so sometimes he’s a bit hesitant because he has an opinion about being locked up for the night. It’s funny to watch him. As soon as I give the command he sometimes runs one more lap around the coffee table, gives a small *thump* and jumps into his cage. Then he stands on the tips of his toes eagerly awaiting the treat.

– ..op reis”: Travel! Same as for “hokje”, but now with his travel carrier.

– ..kom maar”: Come here! Invitation to join me on the couch for a fruity snack or a petting session.

– ..genoeg”: Enough! For ending food agression behaviour. He goes crazy for fruit, and sometimes when I share a piece with him he’ll demand more. He used to try and climb all over me to get to it, and he hurt me in the process at times. In the beginning I had to repeat the command louder and louder several times to get him to stop, using my hand to try and block him off. That always ended with him bolting off and lots of stress for the both of us. Now he knows that he isn’t getting any more fruit, no matter what he tries. Nowadays he’ll just lay calmly next to me once I say it calmly once or twice. Much better ^_^

Hello!

Teaching your bunnies tricks is a wonderful way to bond with them and show them that some things (like sitting on you) aren’t as scary as they may think. It helped me a lot to gain Tambor s trust and make him more comfy around me.

I tried clicking my fingers in from of my bunny, and he ignored me . It’s so cool Munchie “knew” that without teaching her! What’s the part of the training that it’s not going well?

I’ve been training him for a couple of months and he can now stand, spin, sit on my lap and jump over a stick on command. I train him every evening before dinner time (so he’s more excited about his rewards). I don’t use treats, just part of his dinner pellets.

Hey there!

I think they need a lot of practice at the beginning to “understand” that you’re asking for something and will give a reward in exchange. For example, it took me 1 month to teach him the first trick -to stand- (I did 5 minutes sessions every night, more tires them a lot), but only another month to teach him 3. I’m sure that when your bunnies “get” their first trick, everything will be much easier! I love training Tambor because our understanding of each other grows and we can do something together that is fun for both of us. He was a very scary bunny when we got him; he literally shaked/trembled non-stop for the first month!

I’ve read that the “spin” trick is the easiest one for bunnies to understand. Maybe you can start with that one . When I taught him to do that, I started by holding a pellet in my hand while Tambor was in front of me. Then, I said “spin!” and did a slow spin movement with the pellet, so that he followed it and spinned (it took a while for him to follow the full 360&ordm. You do that for many days and reduce the scope of your hand movements little by little. Eventually, he will just need the voice command or a simple flick of your hand.

Bandit knew a few tricks, however I haven’t taken the time to try and train Apollo and Luna. It’s a bit harder with two buns because you need to separate them for training otherwise they are too unruly once the treats come out The do however respond to “who wants a treat?” and “salad!”.

I had to train “bedtime” for Bandit to go back to his cage, but with Apollo and Luna just adding fresh hay to their rack sends them racing in so I’ve never felt the need to add a command to it.