Unconventional bonding with my rabbit

[HappyHollandDays]

Since about the first week after I brought Rumple home, he and I have been struggling to bond. It seemed so promising at first. He would come up to me and eat out of my hand from the first day home. After that, despite having hours of floor time a day. Our bond seemed to plateau and then regress!!!  I have been at a loss lately. Trying to decide between continued patience, or taking the hard road like I did with my hamsters. 

I didn’t do either. Instead I thought of a completely different method that I have never seen on here, or really anywhere. I thought I would share my possibly insane idea.

I decided to invade Rumple’s personal space. Most people on here will probably disagree with this method, because his cage is his “safe area” but I decided to throw caution to the wind… I got in his cage, closed the door, and just sat. Within 5 minutes, he was acting like the bunny I brought home a month ago. Nose bonking me, periscoping, climbing on me, playing with his toys (which I hadnt seen in a long time) I sat in his cage for an hour. By the end of that hour, he was accepting pets without the slightest adverse reaction. Then I started to get a little cramped and made my exit… he followed me out! He immediately started doing bunny 500s around my room, and binkies, and running up to me, and accepting pets outside of his cage (which he has NEVER done). I don’t know if he was happy to have me out, or if I made a huge leap in bonding with him. Either way, he is so lively and happy right now, I couldn’t care less which it was. 

My logic was this:

When bonding a rabbit to another rabbit, a lot of you use “stress bonding” so, I figured I would use the same logic. If he and I were both in a cramped area, hewould get used to me way faster than the vast expanse of my room. And it seemed to work!!! 

Let me know what you think! I just thought I would share the experience because, well, it’s pretty unique. Maybe it will work for someone else too!

[vanessa]

🙂

[Paradigm]

While I tend to be less in their face my wife is firmly of the opinion that while you shouldnt deliberately scare a rabbit (we actually insisted the person at the adoption put a rabbit down because it was clearly terrified about being picked up when we’d asked to see it) she does think that animals can need to be shown something is safe so they can try again.

Pushing their boundaries as it were. All of our rabbits have been more friendly than most, but we’ve also tried to select friendly rabbits plus a small sample size so who knows whether it works in the main.

[Paradigm]

I guess if you think about it, people actually quite often do push rabbits boundaries when they bond them.

[HappyHollandDays]

Ive continued this process. And as i type, rumple is on top of me. He lets me give him forehead pets now, and loves them. Its amazing how far we’ve come in such a short time. I am so hapoy to finally be bonding with him!

[vanessa]

You know – come to think of it – I I suppose that by putting Guin in an uncomfortable spot of bonding with Lancelot – she and I have bonded through the process. She didn’t appreciate being picked up and moved a couple times a day, and starting the bonding process with Lancelot was stressful on both of them. With the forced bunny-smoosh’es, the vacuum cleaner, the long car rides, trips in the carier, moving them from space to space, etc. Lancelot was already cozy with me, but Guin – although I have had her for a year and a half, and Lancelot for only a few months, Guin was slow at taking a shine to me. She started off as an outdoor rabbit, and for the longest while, I could approach her for head rubs, maybe, if she wasn’t feeling grumpy, but she wasn’t snuggly. By now, since the whole bonding attempt with Lancelot, she is snuggly with me like she was with her first husbun. It’s really sweet. She stands up on her hind quarters to greet me, and now I can give her way more than just head rubs. She likes a full bunny-body massage. So yes – I would definitely agree that pushing a bunny’s boundaries works not only to bond 2 bunnies, but also bunny-person. She asks for petting, and darts around to get my attention. I think she is happier, and that makes me happy.

[Author]

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