Buffy The Tyrant

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BINKYBUNNY FORUMS

This topic has 3sd replies, 2 voices, and was last updated 3 years, 8 months ago by DanaNM.

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- 02/24/2021 at 8:29 PM
  bl665
  Participant
  6 posts
  Hi my name is Sam, I hope you all are doing well. I have found this forum in hopes to get some insight from actual rabbit owners and possibly people that have experienced what me and my girlfriend are experiencing.
  
  Just to start We have had our main rabbit Buffy for about a year now. We adopted her from a “reputable” location. She was spayed when we got her. Our plan was to make her a free roam rabbit since we didn’t like the idea of keeping her in the cage 24/7. that is just cruel.
  
  So buffy currently is set up like this. We have potty trained her which was very easy as she is a pretty smart rabbit. We share our room with her which is about 15×20. She has her cage set up with litter box in it and extra hay and toys with a blanket over the top to keep dark. (Her safe spot). Besides being able to roam our room she gets outside time in our pretty big backyard from 3pm – 7pm or8ish. She has started to figure out when dinner time is so she comes in on her own for the most part. If she doesn’t come in on a particular night I will take my flashlight and guide her to the backdoor which usually works. Sometimes shes is very stubborn about going in though.
  
  She HATES to be picked up which is very frustrating because when we need to brush her or put flea medicine it can be a huge escapade. The same goes for trying to have play time or even giving her treats. I have went through youtube and various other websites and they all say the same thing about this.
  
  “Just sit on the floor until they come to you”(we have done that, doesnt work), or “get down to there level and be nice”(we have done that and still do that, doesnt work) or “Win them over with treats”(we have done that, doesnt work) HA I believe all of this but I’m telling you this rabbit is different. We can’t even begin to think of what may have happened to her.
  
  Since we have had her I do my best to sit on the floor with her in the room. I will sit there for hours sometimes and she never is interested in anything I have. Including apples which disappear from the food bowl first and always first. It seems as if she is scared of us and I have no understanding of what we have done to scare her. To kind of keep things closer lately I have a pen that I bought and I will sit in the pen with small treats. She will not take any of them. She comes up to my feet and will try and shove them or nibble on them. I think she is telling me to get the hell out but I can’t say it for sure.
  
  Lately she has started to become a little more aggressive and I see it getting worse if we don’t do something. If you try to give her a treat and want her to come out of where she is she will grunt (a lot of grunting). She basically will grunt at anything we try and do. We don’t have a clue how to stop it. We also came across another bunny which a year older from a friend. The friend found the bunny in a kennel next to a dumpster. Sad right ?! So we took it in. We are still in the process of potty training it. It has a really nice personality almost opposite of buffy. We thought it would be a good idea since buffy is alone alot. At the time we got buffy we weren’t able to get another rabbit unfortunately. We tried stress bonding twice and the second time buffy put a nail through the other rabbits ear. So We have haulted that at the moment. We wanted to retrace our steps and get the first bun figured out. This has been very frustrating. We barely touch the rabbit and only ask for her to be nice ya know. So we are not sure where to go.
  
  We believe our rabbit is domestic, but looking at WILD rabbits Buffy is very similar almost identical to wild rabbits except the color which is gray and not brown. Is there a chance we were sold a wild rabbit that someone tried and domesticated ?
  
  One of my questions is can a rabbit have to much outside time? Meaning can a rabbit be spoiled and take advantage of being able to be outside like that?
  
  I would love to train Buffy but I can never get her involved in anything? Is there any advice or tricks you know of to entice a rabbit to do that?
  
  I’ll start with that and see what you all think. Any advice or knowledge is GREATLY GREATLY APPRECIATED!
  
  Thanks so much. Cheers !
- 02/25/2021 at 11:02 AM
  DanaNM
  Moderator
  9054 posts
  Hmmmm, this is very interesting, and I can see how it would be very stressful.
  
  How frequently would you say you need to corral her by chasing, or have to pick her up?
  
  To me this reads as though she has gotten somewhat territorial, and that she anticipates negative things happening when you approach. It’s also very odd that she won’t take a treat from you.
  
  Can you post a picture of her? (If you add the pic to her profile you should then be able to add it to the post from your media library… we are still working out some glitches).
  
  Here’s what I think I would try…. I would stop the backyard sessions for now, roaming in the room is plenty of exercise. I would also attach an x-pen to her cage, and have that be her home base that she has 24/7 access to. Then, I would only allow free-roam of the room while you are there, for several hours a day (so you could do a few hours morning and evening, or even overnight if you choose). The idea is that you want her to associate more space with you, and not think that you are invading her space (if she views the whole room as her territory).
  
  You mentioned she gets apples in her food bowl, so she might be getting too many treats. I would work on hand feeding her as much of her salad as you can, and all of the treats she would normally get. If she won’t take it from you while you are sitting in the pen, try sitting on the other side of the pen and feeding through the fence bars. You can use her pellet ration to get her back into her pen when you need her to. Aim to use something positive to move her around when possible, rather than shooing her. I’m basing this off the socialization program we use at the rescue I volunteer at, btw.
  
  Clicker training can be a really great tool for bonding with bunnies, and could help you with other necessary things (moving her around, nail trims, etc.). The fact that she comes up to your feet and nudges is a good thing. My bunnies do this too, but it’s not aggressive. Sometimes it means you are in their way though, lol
  
  For picking her up, you can try training her to go into her carrier, or pick her up while she’s in her litter box. If you must pick her up without doing that, try not to chase. Approaching from the side helps too. Here’s a vid of how I pick up difficult-to-handle bunnies at the shelter: https://drive.google.com/file/d/12iIW-I7CAJIK7Zah6jN0470eQkOlaqr3/view?usp=sharing
  
  . . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.
- 02/26/2021 at 1:57 PM
  bl665
  Participant
  6 posts
  Thanks for the reply Dana! That was very educating watching you get that rabbit. I never thought of leaving the head out of the back so they can still see what is going on. Nice touch! We will be trying that from now on.
  
  As far as frequency. It is not very often especially now since we don’t want to upset her. when she was in shedding season I’d say maybe 2 times a week at most. This would only be for a period of 15 minutes max. She will always flee the seen when she feels your hand get loose. It takes one person to hold her down and one to do the brushing. We tried to be as invasive as possible by putting her on the bed and giving her as much space as she could so she didn’t feel claustrophobic. But there is only so much we could do when brushing her.
  
  This is Buffy
  
  https://i.imgur.com/IBLaGTL.jpg
  
  https://i.imgur.com/DEJygim.jpg
  
  https://youtu.be/5TuWcp7rnYE
  
  (Images & Video reviewed and approved by Wick)
  
  Ok we will try that and see what happens. What you are saying makes perfect sense about the territory. Today I have the day off so I tried another method for moving her around. During covid-19 when I was unemployed I would scoop her up and take her out to the garage with me in her x pen. Just to get use to being around me and it was always good. Its just now that I have been back to work I don’t really have the time or energy to chase her down. Today, I used the carrier we have and put treats in it and she almost immediately went in. Took her out to the garage and she seems like a happy bun. I’m hopping (no bun (pun) intended :D) she has a better experience with that rather than me holding her and walking out here. I’m sure it will end on a good note. Will report back lol
  
  I actually got a clicker a few days ago and everytime I get the chance to run into her and give her a treat. I will do the click. I know you are suppose to do it a certain way so I am trying to learn when I should click the clicker. For now every positive movement towards me gets a click and then a treat so wish me luck ! Hope you all are enjoying your weekend. Ill let you know what happens. thanks again DANA !
- 02/26/2021 at 6:00 PM
  DanaNM
  Moderator
  9054 posts
  You’re welcome! That hold is called the “football hold” for your reference! I keep the nose poking out so they can breath, but sometimes I do cover their eyes during the hold if they start to struggle.
  
  She’s very cute! She doesn’t look like a wild rabbit to me.
  
  Carrying her to the garage might have been making her afraid, so happy to hear the carrier worked out! That seems a much better solution.
  
  So with the clicker, the first step is to “charge the clicker”. That means teaching them that a click means a treat is coming (think Pavlov’s dog… he learned the bell meant dinner was coming). For this step, you don’t actually want to have the click associated with any particular behavior. Try to make it random. Most animals learn this pretty quickly. You can also repeat this whenever you decide to give a treat or feed a meal.
  
  Then you can start using the clicker to “capture” behaviors you like. A good one to start with is targeting. You can make a target out of a ping pon ball on the end of a pen, or you can just use your hand as the target. You hold the target near the bun’s face so they are enticed to sniff it. When they move their nose towards it, click and treat. If they boop it with their nose, even better, click and treat. Once they are touching their nose to it close by, move the target a bit farther away and repeat. This is a great one to use for moving buns around for sure, and they usually get it pretty quickly. It’s best to just to short training sessions, no more than a few minutes at a time, so they don’t have too many treats or get bored. You can even incorporate training into her pellet ration and use those as treats if she gets excited about them.
  
  Treats for training should be small but very delicious. Some people like to use tiny pieces of dried cranberry (like a cranberry cut into 4) as “high value treats” to get the bun very excited.
  
  . . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.
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