He won’t stop pulling our carpet

[Casper]

Our bunny keeps pulling on our carpet and ripping pieces of the carpet out. We have tried spraying the carpet and it doesn’t work. Any suggestions??

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

Yup! Little buggers!!

Kokanee does this too…perfume and stuff doesn’t work for her…You have to put estetics out of mind and physically block everywhere she is chewing…Use garbage bags or tinfoil and tape it to your carpet…Or put objects on it that can’t be moved, I use a wine rack or textbooks. Anything that physically stops them from chewing…When they go there and want to chew, redirect and praise…You don’t have to keep it like that forever, just a few days or a week or so.

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

whoops!! And Welcome to binkybunny!!!

[Beka27]

welcome here!  the main thing you’ll need to do, as kokaneeandkahlua mentioned, is redirect your bunny.  you can do this a couple ways.  either always have a toy or chew thing (magazine, phonebook, junkmail) on hand to distract bunny.  this might only work for a few mintues tho.  another thing you could do is cover the fav chew spots.  i have collapsed cardboard boxes tucked into the corners of my living room.  they actually extend underneath our couches so Meadow cannot lift up and chew underneath them.  granted… not attractive decorating… but owning a house rabbit has nothing to do with beauty.  or you can get carpet squares for cheap (couple bucks at carpet store) and use those to cover the spots, therefore giving bunny acceptable spots to chew.  if he chews somewhere he’s not allowed, redirect him to his carpet square.  if you do that you need to make sure he’s just pulling up the fibers, and not eating them as that can cause tummy troubles.

oh yeah… is he neutered yet?  altering will usually cut this behavior down bigtime.

[Deleted User]

Ooohhh Bad Bunny!

Sprinkles has dug holes in many places and right down to the boards …. I put down some tiles I had laying around … mainly in the corners where she used to chew … that fixed it!  The tiles blend in with the carpet so it did not matter too much.

If I ever sell my place I am going to have to replace the carpet in the loungeroom and dining areas.

Dawn xx

[Scarlet_Rose]

Hi Casper, what are you spraying the carpet with? it is true you may need to find physical barriers or provide a safe chew toy that covers that spot.

[LittlePuffyTail]

Stormy does this too when he is bored. He digs the carpet and then clamps on with his teeth and pulls the pieces put. He will usually try a couple of times and I clap my hands and say “No” and he usually gives up and moves on to make trouble elsewhere..

Beka27- That’s so true “owning a house rabbit has nothing to do with beauty!” I’m sure our houses are all the same: Hay EVERYWHERES! Random objects blocking access to cords, etc…Practically my whole living room is devoted to an x-pen and then there’s the “rabbit room” itself…

[Beka27]

^^^lol… LittlePuffyTail… i’m sure most of our houses look like that. 

funny story actually.  in my “Meadow found the Kitchen” thread in the lounge i’ve been posting how Meadow is going underneath the hutch in the dining room.  well, now i am hearing her chewing the wood underneath, and that is scaring me (not b/c i care about the old hutch, which is a hand-me-down anyways) but b/c i don’t know what kind of wood is under it and i don’t want her chewing it if it’s not safe.  so our weekend project will be emptying the hutch, taking the top shelves off, flipping the whole piece of furniture over, and staple-gunning cut pieces of cardboard to the underside to block the entrances…  so as soon as you walk in my home, you will see cardboard on the underside of my hutch. 

yes.  bunny slave does not start to describe me…

 

[Spacehopper]

definitely agree with kokaneeandkahlua, once Brian figured out pulling out the carpet tufts was fun our old place looked like a bombsite, everything was on the floor, wedged in here and wedged in there,….we gave him lots of other things to play about with including toilet roll tubes, old clothing and pillowcases etc he soon found the carpet wasn’t all that much fun.

[Author]

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