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The subject of intentional breeding or meat rabbits is prohibited. The answers provided on this board are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet.  It is your responsibility to assess the information being given and seek professional advice/second opinion from your veterinarian and/or qualified behaviorist.

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Forum BEHAVIOR My sweet girl is suddenly scared of me

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    • chloeshuman
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      1 posts Send Private Message

        Hi there!

        I’m new to binkybunny, nice to meet you all! I’m so sorry to start of with such a long post, but I’m getting really worried and I’m looking for some advice from some more experience bunny mommies.  

        So here’s what’s up:
        We adopted our bunny (Chloe, a 4 month old dutch lop) a little over two weeks ago. We fell in love with her and it looked like the love was mutual. Since her first day at our house she has been such a happy little bunny. We let her out of her cage right the second day and she has been living her cage free life ever since. She has a room (about 10 square meters) all to herself, with a litter box, plenty of toys, cardboard house to play with/hide in/nibble on, blankets to get cozy with, curtain to hide behind, et cetera. Since the first day she has been eating out of our hand and just a few days later she let us pet her, was hopping/running/binkying around every day and felt comfortable enough to be super relaxed and lay down and take naps right beside us. Litter training has been going quite well. She mostly poops and pees in her litter box but has daily little accidents (just single little poops here and there, but only in her room, almost never in our living room). 

        But then… Yesterday morning I went in to give her some parsley (her absolute favorit morning snack) in her room, but she was suddenly super super scared of me. She ran away like crazy, thumped her little feet on the floor twice and hid under a chair in her room. I tried to calm her down by talking to her, but she really was in no mood. I stayed in her room (sitting on the ground) for a few minutes, but she stayed still underneath the chair. Since I was in a rush to go, I cleaned out her litter box, put in some fresh hay and went on my way. When I got back home it was the same deal: I slowly walked into her room while saying her name, she’s usually super happy when me or my boyfriend calls her since she knows it might be snack time, but again she ran away like crazy and this time hid behind the curtains. 

        Today during the day I tried to bond with her several times by laying on the ground in her room offering her some pellets. She first hides, but when she smells the pellets she will approach me very carefully, take some pellets out of my hands and hide again. The worst thing was when she was calmly laying next to my boyfriend’s feet who was on the computer, I walked in to the living room and I must have scared the heck out of her because she run straight into her room and hid again. It’s so bad, that even when she see’s me in our bedroom (which is adjacent to her room, with a glass door separating both rooms) she will run and hide.

        There are two thinks I think might be the cause of her sudden changed behaviour. Thursday afternoon I petted and hold a dog (Pomeranian). On the first morning Chloe got scared of me I was wearing the same blazer jacket I was wearing when I petted the dog. Could it be she smelled the dog and got scared? The thing is, I obviously showered and wore different clothes today, but she’s still scared of me. 
        The other thing that could be going on are her hormones, since she is a little over 4 months now and not spayed yet. 

        Is there anyone who has any thoughts on this? I’m quite sad, since I love our little girl so much and she used to be such a happy and carefree bunny. 

        Sorry for the mega long post. I hope everyone has a great sunday!

        Many thanks in advance fellow bunny lovers!

        Wendy 


      • Azerane
        Moderator
        4688 posts Send Private Message

          I suspect that the dog smell is definitely the trigger here. If I ever come home with dog smell on me, Apollo bolts and hides, whereas Luna isn’t phased. Even before I got to the part about the dog I was going to ask if you had changed anything about your smell (hand wash, soap, shampoo, hand cream etc) as sometimes that can even affect some bunnies.

          I suspect that she is still frightened after her initial few shocks with the smell and the fear. Is the door to her room open with a baby gate? Or is the door kept closed? Talk to her before you even get to the room, calling her name etc so that she knows your coming, and make sure that you’re not wearing the shoes that you wore when you saw the dog. Then keep doing as you have been, talking to her softly, moving slowly. She’ll come around. She just got a fright and instinct is a hard barrier to break through once that kicks in.

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      Forum BEHAVIOR My sweet girl is suddenly scared of me