getting rabbit to like me again, medicine related

[Matula]

hello all! my 8 mo. old neutered rabbit has a mild case of ear mites and also an eye infection. i took him to the vet and he got an injection and ointment for his eye. he’ll need to go back for two more injections with two weeks in between. he lives in a two story cc cage i made.

to kill the mites, i boraxed my carpets. i cleaned his cage and the area around his cage with a bleach/water mix as the vet recommended (washed it all off water afterwards). he’s quarantined ( i have his cage open so he can walk around the area that’s a pretty decent size, sectioned off from the living room, but it’s on tile so i added towels so he can walk around) because i’m afraid of the mites spreading and coming back once the injections are done.

he’s a rabbit that hates being picked up and wasn’t a fan of getting pet, really. I can only brush him when he’s distracted but he had gotten a lot better with it until now. i feel really bad when i have to pick him up, but it’s too difficult to get the ointment on his eye otherwise. i feel like picking him up is making him hate me. when i tried to put the ointment on him yesterday (the second day after the vet) he lunged at me from his cage and keeps grunting at me.  i tried to bribe him with treats and have him eat his breakfast and dinner out of my hands to show i’m not always there to pick him up. i know it’s only been a few days (he went to the vet this friday) but i can already tell just within those few days he really doesn’t seem to like me all that much anymore.

is there anything i can do to help with this? should i just keep up routine? since he doesn’t have access to my living room anymore, should i spend more time with him in his quarantined area?  he wasn’t handled well before i adopted him, so it’s taken a long time to even get this far and now i feel like i’m going to lose all the progress ive made over the past 5 months with him.

[OnyxMoon]

I was feeling the same way with my bun! He hated being picked up, would refuse his medicine completely and even would bite at me. I had so many bruises and bite marks all over my arm and some on my chest! 

But i persevered through the medicine, worried he would hate me at the end but i felt okay that he would at least be healthy and safe even if he hated me. Turns out, after a lot of doses of his antibiotics, he kinda got used to it. After i found the proper way to pick him up, he was easier to hold, he stopped biting, and he didn’t hate me after all.

In fact it kinda brought us closer i would think. I did things to help along the way. I would give him fruit after his medicine, or give him his veggies after medicine in the evening and then i would leave him alone for the rest of the night. 

I wouldn’t pick him up without warning, i would offer my hand and pet him a few times before carefully and swiftly picking him up so he spent less time in the air. I would say things like “Good bunny!”, “Good Onyx!”, Good boy!”, in a really soft and calm voice. Even now, a week or two after his last medicine dosage, he still wants me to pet him and he even snuggles me.

Some bunnies, however, will never enjoy being held or picked up. But to help with the petting, don’t reach your hand in the cage. Bunnies are territorial and that’s their area, so they will tend to grunt and lunge. 

Try to get him out of his cage, out in a pen, and just sit with him for a while before ointments and medicines. Offer your hand to him, and if he bows his head then give a little pet on the head once and take your hand away. This really helped with my bunny, who hated being touch or bothered at all at first. It showed him that if he didn’t want to be bothered, i would respect that and it got him to trust me more. 

You can repeat this a couple times, as long as he doesn’t run away. If he does run away or just doesn’t bow his head, take your hand away and try again in about thirty seconds to a minute or whenever he comes back over to you. I was told to just sit on my bunnies level, and just play on my phone. Just to get him used to my presence. 

Hope this wasn’t too long, and i hope it helped in some way!  

[Nutmeg]

ONYX’s info above is great!
But I also just wanted to tell you that I had to give my bunny medicine and force fed her critical care ALL of which she HATED. She fought me tooth and nail and would let it build up in her mouth until it started squirting out the sides of her mouth.
It was all very traumatic for both of us….
But you know what… it ended up bonding us more closely together!! She was closer to me after it all!

** Just try to take deep breaths and be CALM when you are doing it. Talking soothly to the bunny the whole time. I swear that helped her know that as much as we both hated it that it was coming from a place of love!
Good luck with everything and keep us posted

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