Okay, so this is long, but it’s weird because I’ve never experienced this in a rabbit before, but ever since Meki’s eye injury in August where I spent a LOT of time with her, calling into work, etc., she’s seem to have become aware of the fact that if she’s not feeling well, I worry about her and don’t leave her side and give her tons of pets and love.
So one day a few months ago, I was preparing to leave overnight and come back the next morning, so I gave her a heaping pile of hay, a little more pelleted food, and then let her be to finish packing. Normally in the morning she runs for her food dish because she’s in love with her pellets, but that day not so. She looked apathetically at her pellets, turned her nose up at her fresh hay, and when I shook the treat bag (dehydrated peas and carrots, she will do anything for these and come running from a mile away) she huffed and puffed and laid down. I put a treat under her nose and she turned her head away, put a pile of the treats on the floor and she ignored it. I tried picking her up and she was just dead weight in her bed. So I immediately stop packing and start freaking out. I’m petting her, phone in hand to call the vet, mixing some critical care, looking panicked towards my boyfriend when he says “She does this EVERY time you leave…”
And it hit me… if I ever leave for extended periods of time, she acts sick, almost like she knows I’ll be gone longer than a few hours. So boyfriend convinced me to finish packing and we can take her to the vet if she still hasn’t eaten in an hour. Within five minutes of me leaving the room, I check in on her because I hear a shuffle. She’s shoving mouthfuls of hay into her face, the pile of treats is already gone, and then she sprints to her food dish and starts scarfing that down too. She waited for me to leave the room to stop dying. So ever since then I tell her I’m not falling for her fake sickness again because she clearly has me wrapped around her finger.
That brings us to last night where I had her out in the living room and picked her up to put her back into her pen. I set her down and and closed the gate to go back into the living room and she… walks away. Like back feet one step at a time, slowly. She walks like that into her litterbox, walks out of it like that, and then awkwardly settles into her bed. So I’m freaking out thinking I broke her hip or something holding her. Out of panic I go to my failsafe of shaking her treat bag…. and she’s suddenly healed. She sprints over to me and sits up on her back legs, periscoping, sniffing for her treats. As a precaution I took her into the vet this morning and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with her. X-rays turned out good and she has good muscle tone and no stiffness in her back legs at all.
So why is my rabbit faking illness for attention and how is she outsmarting me each time!? She’s 6 years old and coming up with new ways to trick me into giving her more attention and treats- and it works!