My bunny snorts and attacks, then bunny away!

[lagarkane]

Hi!
I really need your help guys!
My bunny is about 16 months old, and she’s a female, weaned and raised with love.
We try to spend a maximum of time with her, she’s out of her cage every day, plays with us, and gets fed properly, we spend all the weekends with her almost and she’s never alone for more than 12-14hrs.
We live in an apartment with my GF, there’s no kids around just us.
She’s always been a playful bunny, she loves scratching her blanket and roll it under her, she has her own and we let her do. We often poke her very quickly because it makes her do binkies, but recently, she started attacking us and snorting quite loud. She also started scratching literally everything while she was really calm before.
We took it as she just became more playful and we didn’t mind, kids would probably have been afraid of the behavior, but she never bit too strong, and licks is right after, or binkies happily right after.
But now.. now it’s another story. Maybe we shouldn’t have encouraged that “playing hard” behavior, but she’s buying stronger and stronger, and we start to mind. Sometimes it actually hurts quite a bit, and we are trying to make her understand she can’t do that. Usually when we want to punish her we put her in her cage for half an hour then take her out again, but since she’s actually playing and binky, she’s really really hard to catch!
We’ve been told that taking their butts is supposed to call them down, but she just takes it as we’re playing with her, nothing seems to make her understand she can’t play that hard.

Would you have any advice?

[Wick & Fable]

What an energetic personality.

Firstly, don’t put her in the cage for doing this. Rabbits do not understand punishment and she does not perceive she’s doing anything wrong. If anything, this may make her frustrated and more likely to be more emphatic with her behaviors.

Because she hadn’t received comprehendible feedback, her version of play nipping is hard, so you are right that feedback needs to be given, but in a proper way. Similar to puppies play biting, you need to give more directive feedback. A high pitch squeal and retraction of the nipped body part will help. Do it each time she nips too hard for your liking, even if it means doing it 4 times in a row because she isn’t getting it right away.

The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.

[Deleted User]

Another question to ask, is she spayed? What you could be taking as playful could actually be her hormones. A lot of female bunnies display hormonal behavior in an aggressive sort of manner (nipping, biting, territorial behavior) even if it doesn’t seem super aggressive.

[Bladesmith]

Sounds like hormones and attempted dominance/territorial issues.

[lagarkane]

Hi and thanks for your feedback!

I I will try what you are suggesting @Wick, although I’m afraid it is already the kind of reaction I naturally have when I feel her bite. I really like her being this kind of playful, it’s fun and more interactive to be honest, but sometimes, it seems so aggressive that I don’t really know if she is playing hard, or if she’s actually annoyed by what I do.. ^^ What’s sure is that she doesn’t really mean any harm, as she only does it with my hands and arms when I play with her or when she wants our attention, and never our face, and since she always licks it right after, if I stop moving my hands.. ^^
She is not spayed, and I also read that females honk and snort a lot because of their hormones. She also lifts her butt up when we pad her, which is quite funny to see ^^”

I just want to make sure that I’m responding the proper way and that I’m not enforcing the bad behavior I want to fight away. So I’ll stop “punishing” her by putting her in the cage, and I will try positive reinforcement by giving her pellets when I bring my hand closer to her and she doesn’t try to attack it
Thanks for your help!

[Author]

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