Bun emotions? …Bunnymotions?

[litheandgraphic]

So Theodore has lived here with us now for about 2 months. He is 1-2 year old neutered bun, and is very mellow, friendly, and curious by nature.

But I’ve noticed some interesting changes in his behavior and even his personality since we got him. When we first brought him home, he was extremely mellow but wasn’t too keen on being around us too much and was slightly lazy, even. For a while he was also quick to be annoyed, which he’d show us with foot flicks and bunny butts. That, fortunately, has gone away.

Nowadays, his emotions seem much more pronounced. When he’s happy, he binkies all over, which he NEVER used to do, but now he’s also a little bit more skittish of certain things. There is one thing that also could have contributed to this change: two weeks after I adopted him I had to board him at the adopter’s apartment because we were going out of town and so were our roommates. The night I came to pick him up, she tried showing me her method of clipping nails, and Theodore was NOT happy. He even nipped her, and he NEVER does that. He was very stressed, and then he had to go for a stressful car ride back to our place. When we let him out, he was so happy to be home he immediately started to binky, which was the first time I’ve ever seen him do a true binky.

Today he’s extremely sweet and social, and wants to hang out with us and see what we’re up to at all times. He binkies all the time now, but like I said, he’s much more skittish of some things now. Mostly sounds. I wonder if this was brought on by his experience with the adopter. (By the way, I use a much better way to clip his nails – I do it while he eats his evening pellets and he has no issues with it whatsoever.)

So, has anyone had any similar experiences with their buns? He has also been to the vet very recently for a very minor URI which has basically completely gone away now after antibiotics, and otherwise got a clean bill of health from a very good bunny vet.

[LongEaredLions]

My guess would be that he is comfortable enough with you now that he is showing his emotions.
As for the skittish part, he wasn’t that way at all before he went to the boarder?

[litheandgraphic]

Posted By LongEaredLions on 9/01/2014 5:24 PM

My guess would be that he is comfortable enough with you now that he is showing his emotions.
As for the skittish part, he wasn’t that way at all before he went to the boarder?

That’s sort of what I assumed — it’s what I hope anyway!

And no, not really. He didn’t really flinch at anything. But now he’s much more startled by sounds or large objects. He’s not a super scaredy bun and usually gets over it in a few seconds / minutes, but yeah.

[LongEaredLions]

Huh, that’s odd. Mabye at the boarder he had a bad association with certain sounds that made him behave that way? I have no clue, ha ha ha.

[JackRabbit]

Wonder if the boarder has a dog that he may have seen/heard?

[litheandgraphic]

Posted By LongEaredLions on 9/01/2014 5:49 PM

Huh, that’s odd. Mabye at the boarder he had a bad association with certain sounds that made him behave that way? I have no clue, ha ha ha.

It’s entirely possible too that maybe we just didn’t do the things that makes him skittish before, and now that we’ve had him longer, we’re seeing that a little more.

[Author]

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