Lucy was driving me crazy!!!

[Caroline22]

Lucy was driving me completely INSANE tonight. Usually she realizes that if an area is blocked off, she can’t go there. But for some reason, she is OBSESSED with the area behind the couch in the front room. I really wish I could just block the whole room off, but my front room, kitchen, and living room are all connected (her cage is in the living room) without door and HUGE entry ways. It would be possible to build a x-pen gate to block off the room, but it would be such a pain/hassle/annoyance. 

So anyways, back to her couch obsession. The couch is at an angle in the corner of the room, soI made little makeshift barriers to put between the wall and couch, and I also did the perfume thing. That did okay for the past few weeks, but tonight she managed to rip one of the barriers away and get behind the couch – which really wouldn’t be a problem, except for the fact that I can’t see what she’s doing and she’s most likely chewing on the back couch panels. Then I finally decided to push the couch as far as it would go against the wall – which also worked for like 1 minute, until my little daredevil decided to repetitively jump onto the couch and try to jump off the top. UGH. And then she decided she would try to go under the couch, which doesn’t really work because it’s a pull out couch, so there’s a whole bed folded up underneath it. I ended up, just giving up on free roam time and lured her back to her cage. 

I know her behavior will improve after she’s spayed, but she turns five months in a few days, so I’ll still have another month of waiting. And one of the reasons I adopted her, was because she was the youngest bun at the shelter and I knew she wasn’t getting the extra care she needed. But it gets better right? Please someone, please tell me that it gets better!

“haha mom, look at me! I’ve out smarted you again!”

being Ms. Innocent 

[Stickerbunny]

Hormonal behaviors go away after spays, but the bunny mischief likely won’t. Stickers considers anything blocked off as a challenge of figuring out how to bypass the block. NIC panel barricades around furniture work wonders.

[BinkyBuster]

Arrrgggg Buster is neutered and does this type of stuff ALL the time! If anybody has any ways to teach them I would love to hear it…

In the house I was in for the Summer he had a WHOLE dining room to run around in. We had make-shift barriers and he would spend hours trying to get through (usually successfully.) He chewed through most of them… drove me nuts.
Good luck with Lucy, I know how it feels.

[Elrohwen]

Haha. Don’t be so sure she’ll get better after the spay! She sounds very much like my Hannah – once an idea is in her head, she is going to get through anything to get it. It took 5 versions of a gate on the stairs to keep her from going up there. She got behind the couch so many times by pulling out the barriers, and once we finally made them secure she figured out how to go over them. We only figured out she had been back there because the surround sound speaker wires were all cut in multiple places. Hannah just turned 6 (had her since 3 years old, spayed at 6 months) and she’s barely slowing down 😛

[jerseygirl]

Looks like she’s scoping out that plant!
Not sure if this will work but you could try running a tunnel for her behind the couch. Making sure the ends of the tunnel can’t be moved. So she’ll be able to go behind the couch but not actually be able to get to the fabric or carpet.

I love how pristine white she looks against the rich colours.

[Emmie]

Posted By jerseygirl on 03/22/2013 12:06 PM

Looks like she’s scoping out that plant!
Not sure if this will work but you could try running a tunnel for her behind the couch. Making sure the ends of the tunnel can’t be moved. So she’ll be able to go behind the couch but not actually be able to get to the fabric or carpet.

I love how pristine white she looks against the rich colours.

This is a great idea!

Thane was a little nightmare at this age. Now he’s 2 and not anywhere near as bad. He’s a very chilled out happy bun. Hopefully it’ll improve with age, but there’s no guarantee!

[jerseygirl]

Mmm… I didn’t think about if they jump on top of a tunnel. Or bypass it by going over the couch.

Back to the drawing board.

[Monkeybun]

We just made a mini wall of NIC grids along the back of the couch. Moose likes racing around it too much to stop him completely, the wall blocking the back/underside works well.

[jerseygirl]

That’s a good solution.

I really think sometimes its better not to fight rabbits on where they’re determined to go.
Barriers are a project some will work at incessantly. They need the sense that various pathways are free and clear.

[Caroline22]

BinkyBuster, Lucy is kind of funny, because I have a lot of temporary/make shift cardboard blockages around the house, and she doesn’t really understand that she could easily chew through all of them. I let her out today to test out the new ones I put up, and so far she’s just so stumped on what to do. haha

Elrohwen, ohhhh gosh. She hasn’t acted so weirdly, crazy obsessive over anything else in the house, which is good. I’m just hoping that she forgets about it and moves on to something else! haha.

Jerseygirl, that’s a really good idea! The plant is fake, and she doesn’t really bother touching it. There’s just something about the back of the couch that she’s obsessed with. I finally blocked most of it off last night at 1 am.

Monkeybun, I’m going to try to get some more NIC cubes when I’m out next week and try to build a barrier, so that way she can’t jump onto the couch anymore.

Emmie, that’s good to hear, because she’s only a crazy little teenager right now.

[Monkeybun]

We allow our rabbits up on the couch, its behind it where they can get under it that we block off. Squirrel likes to hop up on it with s, and Moose likes to perch up on the top, so if we stopped allowing it, we’d have to start sleeping with one eye open every night

[NewBunnyOwner123]

Oh Sally is OBSESSED with trying to get behind our couch as well. Where we blocked it off she will start digging and I get so annoyed at her sometimes and after awhile I just take her back to her pen mumbling “if you don’t want to exercise, fine by me!” lol Or I just close the gate to the living room and she is stuck with the kitchen for the rest of the day :p

Now Harley, he has an obsession with the couch but in a weird way..he licks it… A LOT! And it’s microfiber suede so you can see huge wet spots all over my couch if you don’t catch him on time. Nothing like sitting down on a wet couch. I started kicking him off the couch and then he will just start licking the sides of it… so I am kind of stuck on how to deter that behavior.

Why must rabbits be obsessed with couches!? lol

[tanlover14]

HAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Sorry for the laughing but I have three hellions to deal with also. They aren’t interested in ANYTHING until they figure out they can’t get somewhere or it’s bad to do something. Then they are ALLL over it. I call them my Terrible Tans.

[Stickerbunny]

Newbunny – I have something better than sitting on a wet couch. Powder is obsessed with licking my PILLOW so if I am not paying attention I can go to bed at night and put my face down on the pillow and… soaked. Or, he’d wake me up at night on the bed licking my pillow, scrape, scraaaaape, scraaaaaaaaaaaaape. lol I have no idea why licking things is so appealing to them!

[NuggetBuns]

Caroline22- I feel your pain! We have the same problem with Nugget since the day we brought her home and she discovered the couch! After researching a lot about rabbits and talking to other people about it, I’m pretty sure rabbits like the tight space between the couch and the wall. It’s dark and peaceful, just like a tunnel which rabbits love. Try blocking off the sides with storage boxes/shoe boxes or solid objects that Lucy can’t move or scratch up.

tanlover14- Yes, your words couldn’t be more true, bunnies are mischievous little rascals. Sometimes Nugget escapes the living room by jumping off the side of the couch (if we forget to extend the ex pen to block it) and she will hop back and forth under the dining table b/c she knows I’ll never be able to catch her. It’s like a fun game for her. Then, after a game of cat and mouse (her being the cat!), she gets tired and runs back into the living room. Ugh, it’s so frustrating, especially since she KNOWS she’s being bad. She makes me feel like I’m a stupid human.

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