Introducing dog to bunny

[Insertfamouspersonsname]

I was introducing my dog to my rabbit and it seemed like it was going well. They sniffed at each other and she eventually came up and laid close to him and I couldn’t see any fear from her. After I was finished letting them meet each other for the day (I know it should be a process not just throwing them together and hoping for the best no matter how mellow they seem) and put my dog in the other room, my rabbit seemed even more calm than usual and let me walk right up to her and pick her up, where normally I have to slowly crawl over to her and let her sniff me before I can grab her, to put her away. Is it possible she was so scared she was acting calm or do you think she was actually just chill?

Sorry if this is stupid, I tend to freak out over the smallest things.

[Cocoa]

It’s not a stupid question. Once my bunny got scared and was really calm when i tried to put her away. I put her in her cage so she would feel safe and she calmed down. When my dogs and bunnies met, my bunnies were in a big dog crate. They had lots of boxes to hide in if they got scared. I let the dogs go up to the cage and the bunnies ran over to them to say hello. That happened every day so now they are fine together. I think your bunny was scared. What was her body language like? If you have to re introduce them at some point maybe you can try what i did. These are my first bunnies so I may be wrong that yours was scared

[sarahthegemini]

Were her pupils really wide? Sometimes a bunny will be frozen in fear and thus able to be picked up which people then mistake for being calm and enjoying the process.

[Bam]

Did ypu see the white of your bun’s eyes? That often means they’re scared. They can also freeze as Sarah says. But I doubt a bun would go up to a dog and lie down next to it if it was really scared.

This is a very good post by UroborosElite about introducing bun and dog: https://binkybunny.com/FORUM/tabid/54/aft/164067/Default.aspx#573141

I have a dog and a bun and they don’t interact much, it’s almost like they’re in separate worlds. My bun is more interested in my dog than my dog is in the bun.

[Insertfamouspersonsname]

Thank you everyone for your responses! Seeing these and also a lot of additional research on rabbit body language, because I know mine’s pretty well by now but after that I wanted to double and triple check, I’ve figured out she actually wasn’t afraid. And thanks for the advice on how to introduce the two, I actually did start it with her being caged with places to hide for a while until I thought they were ready to be introduced without the barrier. I still need to work a bit on my dog’s behavior, but she couldn’t care less whether or not he’s in the room. I still don’t know why she let me pick her up like that when she didn’t give any signs of fear that I could see, but I guess maybe we’re just progressing to that point in our relationship.

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