A few days ago, Happy started doing something new. She started nipping, and biting me as she groomed me. At first, I was really worried that she was becoming aggressive. She was digging at my arms, and holding my hand in her teeth, trying to move my arm into a different possition. Her bites hurt, but they weren’t hard enough to leave a mark. I just couldn’t figure out what she was doing…until it became obvious. She got my arm into the possition she wanted, and mounted me, and began humping my arm! I read previous posts on this forum, as well as a couple others, and it seems that females and males will both hump, but Happy also does the rabbit mating dance, circling me excitedly, and even grunting a bit, so maybe she really is a he. I also found out that although Happy came from a farm, she is actually a rescue bunny. The men who own the farm don’t breed the rabbits, or raise them for meat. They take in unwanted pets, and accidental litters, and let them live out their lives on the farm. They do rehome a bunny once in a while, but most of them stay on the farm because the people there enjoy them. That’s probably why Happy’s history is a bit unclear. The farmers may not have known if Happy was fixed or not when they rescued her.
I am still not sure if Happy is humping to try to show dominance, or just because she loves me that much. To deal with the love bites, I started making a high pitched sound, “Eeep, eeep, eeep!” when she does it, and she will either be more gentle, or just go back to licking me. If she tries to mount me, I talk to her softly, and gently put my hand over her her head, and push her down. She is a quick learner, and she hasn’t been humping for the last couple days, and she hasn’t nipped me hard either. She does continue to circle me, and she licks/gently nips me all the time. She hops into my lap, groom’s me all over, and will even flop down and go to sleep in my lap. Last night she sat in my lap and put one little front arm over my arm, and laid her face on my arm, and went to sleep like that. It was like she was hugging me.
Do I need to worry about any of these behaviors? Will her love turn to aggression at some point if I don’t get her fixed quick enough? If I do get her fixed, will she still be so affectionate to me? I will get her fixed either way, but I really hope she will still come up into my lap, and give me little bunny kisses. How do rabbits typically change after being fixed?
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