Flemish giant and new puppy

[ilovemybunbun]

Hey everyone,
so I have a flemish giant rabbit, joe. He gets along fine with our dog sadie, who is boston terrier and pug mix. so sadie is only a little bigger than joe. we recently adopted a chihuahua pug mix and she is only like 5 lbs. She won’t get any bigger. The problem is she won’t leave my bun alone! I don’t know why she’s not scared of him ! she is able to fit into all his tunnels and in his hideaways also – where my other dog can’t. so poor joe doesn’t even have a place to go. He has grunted and chased after her a few times but it still hasn’t scared her. I just want them to be able to free roam again and right now we have to separate them. Anyone have similar experience or ideas? I’m praying that this is something that will get old and she won’t care about chasing and annoying him. Anything would be appreciated!!!

[Deleted User]

Dogs are predator and buns are prey, it really is as simple as that. Slow introductions. It might not work out, and you might have to face that. I know buns can coexist with other animals, but primarily there’s that whole predator prey relationship that makes it difficult.

[Mikey]

You need to have a space that she cannot fit so he can escape when he needs to. Youll only train him to become aggressive towards dogs. Not keeping her away from him, youre only heavily stressing him out. Enough stress can cause sickness and death in rabbits.

[flemishwhite]

Maybe the chihuahua just wants to play, maybe the chihuahua is responding so something of a predator instinct.  Anyhow, Joe, the Flemish weighing in a 15 or 20 pounds can easily defend himself against a 5 pound dog.  As a boy we had a male New Zealand rabbit….probably something like 10 pounds.  We had a beagle, who weighed substantially more.  Anyhow the beagle started bothering the New Zealand one day, it started nuzzling and pawing at the rabbit.  I watched in apprehension fearing the beagle was going to bite the rabbit…then suddenly there was a loud bang……the New Zealand rabbit gave the dog a very strong slap in the face with a hind leg.  No more problem from the dog.   Rabbits have a kick that is much stronger than you’d suspect.  Your Flemish rabbit, with 15 pounds of weight or more, has a good bit of that weight in the muscles of it’s hind legs.  My Flemish girls, 15 pounds, have heads and shoulders slightly larger than a normal rabbit, with the bulk of their weight in their hind quarters.  Maybe your Flemish Joe is a lover and not a fighter.  He maybe doesn’t know how strong he is.  I think a problem is that if he ever kicks the chihuahua in the face, he may seriously harm the dog. 

Dog’s respond well to scolding.  Scolding the dog when he chases the rabbit should work. Your chihuahua needs to learn it’s not a good idea to pester a male 15 pound rabbit. .  

[Bladesmith]

TRAIN.
THE.
DOG.

[ilovemybunbun]

Thanks guys for your replies. We are taking it slow. Don’t want to stress Joe out and training the dog one step at a time

[Author]

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