Considering her age, you probably have not had her for a while. She is in a new environment and needs to adjust to each new sound, smell, and experience. Remember that rabbits are on the ground, very low beneath us. When you are approaching the door, opening the door, and entering, who knows when she actually registers it is “you”, as opposed to a large, imposing predator. I would not take this personally. She’s scared at what’s happening, not you. I am tempted to say this is something that will go away with time, as eventually she should learn that nothing bad comes from you entering the room.

I agree that reinforcement every time may not always be a good strategy. If that becomes the signal that things are OK, she might not learn to get over things herself, especially environmental changes that are going to happen often (ex. people going in and out of a room). On her own, she needs to learn that it will be OK, even if no treat or comforting comes eventually.

Some young bunnies are just… flighty. I don’t think it’s anything abnormal.

I wonder if there is some weird reflection she sees that sets her off. Maybe a curtain would help. One of my buns gets freaked out very easily. One trigger is turning on a ceiling fan. I did it once and have not tried again for 3 months because how scared she got. :/

Does this door squeak, even a little?

As the others have said, this doesnt seem too abnormal at all, since rabbits are flight animals.

You could try to ignore her when you go into the room. By that I mean try to not look straight at her, don’t approach her or offer her a treat with your hand. When an animal is in panic mode, it is basically like a wild animal and it can’t “think straight”. The survival instinct takes over and the most important thing is to get away from the perceived threat, i e you.

The first thing a predator does to its prey is to watch it, and when it goes in for the kill, it will lock its eyes on the target. This means that just looking at a rabbit can be perceived by the rabbit as something very threatening. Maybe you could even try backing into the room?

These reactions are automatic since they are instinctive. So they dont mean she doesnt like you!

That makes sense to me, my Elmer HATES the sound of me eating and I guess some smells too. If I start chewing (especially crunching food) near him he starts running around thumping. Luckily he isn’t in the room I eat so I don’t eat when I’m around him.

I’m glad you have figured out the cause!

I do think she could get used to cooking smells with time. The fear is instinctive, but with time, when nothing bad happens in conjunction with the smell, its reasonable to think that she will become desensitised to it. Its not practical for animals (or humans) to freak out at everyday things, so practically all animals, down to even sea slugs, have the ability to react less and less to stimuli that don’t mean any real danger. As an example, city rabbits have no problem living near loud traffic, but load traffic noises would absolutely scare a country rabbit.

One of my rabbits is scared of cooking noises and smells. It’s something that hasn’t gone away in over a year, but it has lessened.

Maybe you could try playing some soft piano, or other gentle music and see if that helps to calm her down?

Agreed, it’s definitely instinctive behavior, for you sound very responsible and kind, two things that rabbits like! 😉

Glad you figured it out! My bunnies HATE cooking sounds, especially the sound of things sizzling in a pan. I wonder if it sounds like a snake to them? We used to morbidly joke they were afraid we were going to eat them.

My do seem like they got used to it though.