Bunny Care Guide: How To Discipline Your Rabbit
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One of the first things you'll realize as a bunny owner is that your bunny is quite naughty. Rabbits are always sticking their noses into things they shouldn't, chewing things they shouldn't and biting that which they shouldn't, which sometimes includes you.
When dealing with rabbits, the best discipline is prevention, or as the old wives would say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. If you have things you don't want your rabbit to chew on, get them out of the way. If you leave your new pants on the floor where bunny can get at them and subsequently chew enough holes in them to make them more like a sieve than pants, then really it's your own fault. (And yes, that was on one occasion, my fault.)
Bunny proofing the areas your rabbit is allowed in is the first step to effective control of your rabbit's behavior. However, no matter how much you bunny proof, it is almost certain that your rabbit will find naughty things to do, so you really do need to come up with some strategy of coping in those situations.
The first thing you shouldn't do, is hit them in any fashion. A rabbit will not construe any form of smack as a constructive comment on their behavior, instead they will become angry, affronted, and possibly even more aggressive. It is difficult enough to establish a good relationship with a rabbit when you treat it as if it were the king or queen of the world, let alone if you dare lay a hand upon it.
Rabbits aren't dogs, they're not going to really learn a great deal of English commands. 'NO' can be quite effective, although it is more a case of tone and pitch being indicators of trouble rather than any recognition of the word itself. If your rabbit bites you, a shrill squeal can be an effective deterrent, and clapping your hands or shouting are also good ways to get a bunny to stop the activity it is engaging in. You may be the recipient of some dirty looks and foot stamps for your effrontery, but the bunny will at least have ceased the activity.
You can also try turning your back on your rabbit, and/or stamping your foot as they do. These are powerful indicators of disdain in the rabbit world, and should your rabbit care what you think, they may be quite effective.
To conclude, it is probably best to think of your bunny as a small, haughty, cyclonic force of nature. You can corral it and provide it with outlets upon which to vent, such as toys, which are very important unless you want your bunny chewing the skirting or other household fixtures. You can cease behavior on a one off basis by the hand clapping or no shouting method, but at the end of the day, disciplining a rabbit is like herding cats, or houseflies, whichever is harder.
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Comments
Hey thanks for the advice. I mean my bunny bites, scratches,and chews on my carpet and my cable.The other day I hit him and felt so terrible I needed a way to punish my bunny without hurting him and now I can. Thanks again!
I have some issues with this line:
"Rabbits aren't dogs, they're not going to really learn a great deal of English commands."
I have an 8-year-old rabbit who responds to "No", "Come here", "Treats", "Up", and "Go home" (return to cage). She still gets into things occasionally, but will stop whatever she is doing and turn around if I say "No" (firmly, but without shouting) followed by her name. I highly recommend reading the book "Hop to it: A guide to training your pet rabbit," if you need some ideas.. which clearly, you do.
I think you might have a pretty special bunny Holly, most rabbits I know are not that smart. I do have to write these articles for the majority of rabbits, not just the special smart ones who learn tricks and commands!
Of course, if you can take just any rabbit and train it the way you have then I would stand corrected, and your snarky comment would be justified. As it is, most people seem to have problems just toilet training them and getting them not to bite them for no reason. It's the aim of this article to persuade them to persist with their rabbits and not simply chuck them outside in a cage.
Evidently you need no advice, which begs the question as to why you are even looking for it.
Bunniez I thought your advice was exceedingly well written. I recently just got a pet rabbit. He is a holland lop, however, I think I am justifying any bad things he does by his cuteness haha, which is making him spoiled? I keep him in a cage ( a rather large one) during the day while I'm at school, and then as soon as I come home I let him out for about 6 hours. Is this too much?.. I am trying to litter train him but am getting nowhere.. could it be because he runs around too much out of his cage? Now that he has explored the entire apartment, he seems to have become antisocial.. always hiding under my bed... what should i do?
I can only hope my rabbit turns out as spectacular as yours Holly, maybe I will teach it to reply back to my comments in English.. perhaps Chinese? :P
I have recently purchases a mini lop. Yes my bun is very naughty and gets into a whole lot of trouble. The litter training was not bad. He will urinate in the box and 90% of the time he will do his other business there as well. My bun lives with a cat called Roxy, and Jack Russell Terrier and a Lab Beagle mix who weights about 50 puonds. My cat and two dogs were introduced slowly to the bun and now are the best of friends. Especially our cat Roxy, she and Thumper like to play catch me if you can. They never touch each other but run back and forth looking the whole time to see if the other is chasing. My bun lives on a diet of fresh parsley, bunny trail mix, apples, romaine lettuce and bunny pellets, along with a hand full of Timothy's hay daily. Thumper has wood blocks designed especially for him and dried Alphalfa to file those teeth down. He sleeps in his cage at night, his bed time is 9:30 and is free at about 7:30 a.m. to roam all day. We take him outside for an hour a day in the back yard to graze in his natural habitat and get fresh air. Right now we have to literally follow his every move, he is only a baby 5 months old and likes to explore, but non the less, we do this so that he can get the most out of his outside time. All together we love him very much, his personality is awesome. He lets us pick him up and cuddle him for a few minutes at a time. He likes to try to eat Jack and Boo's dog food, but this is very dangerous to the rabbits digestive system. Too high in protein and fat so we feed the dogs separately when he is not in the room, for some reason he seems to love their food and snuggles right up under their chins to chow with them. Our family is quite comical. My husband, myself, my daughter, two frogs, a cricket keeper with water and gut loader so that they are healthly enough to feed to the frogs Kermit and Toady, Roxy our cat, Jack and Boo our dogs and now, of course, Thumper our mini lop. Just keep in mind with enough paitence and hours of attention and supervision, anything is possible in the animal world. All of my pets live within the same house and know their boundaries. It just takes paitence and understanding and constant training, but can be done.
Take care,
thankyou for the advice ever since my sister was banned from her rabbit for mistreating it i have been trying to handle it and prevent it from attacking me without harming it now i know and can try to give it the tender loving care my sister didnt im glad she was banned because i had witnessed her ferousously hitting it!!!
I have purchased a mini lop which i can pick up next week. (29th March) He seems lovely he is a chocolate buck which im calling muffin any tips? Hes 8 weeks old.
I have found clapping worked quite well when training my bun not to wee on the bed!! she learned really quick and no longer does it. she always still nips me and my clothes but after reading 'does your bun love you' i'll take that as a compliment shall i!?
Wow Holly I am guessing that you are not a mother. Am I right? Animals are alot like children though there have been records of 2 yr old's learning to read and play Mozart I don't think every article in the world is "politicaly correct when it comes to saying what you can expect from a 2yr old. Maybe Buniez could have wrote most rabbits or your rabbit probably wont but with all the articles she has written on here I don't think she has the time to make sure every one is 100% accurate information she writes on what she has heard and experienced. And you put that your rabbit learned 5 words. That's really about what a dumb would learn most dogs can learn much more than that. Just the basics No, come, stay, sit, roll over, out, potty, treat, food, toy, ball, stick, ect. So before you go attacking someone else for not being politicaly correct think of what you are saying. 5 words is by-far not a lot of words and chances are you say those 5 words differently I'm sure if you said treat very firmly like you do the word no she would not come running to you for her treat. Thanks Buniez for all of your educational articles it shows you do know alot about the average house rabbit. As for Holly if she is such a rabbit expert why is she looking up articles on a blogging site? lol
Thank you so very much! I wasn't sure if I was handling trying to discipline my rabbit, Nabiki right. She's a little monster of a rabbit, but I love her so much I just can't be mean to her; so I tried simply with loud noises to try and get her to leave what she was getting into. It worked! She responds exceptionally well to a high-pitched whine sort of noise. She comes right over from what she was doing and licks me! However, this never worked for keeping her from chewing my shirt or fingers while I was holding her. I noticed that some mother rabbits will give their babies a slight nip on the nose to get them to behave, and a gentle pinch on the nose got her to stop biting me and my clothing! She immediately stops biting and starts licking. Perhaps it's worth a shot if your voice is getting strained and getting nowhere while trying to curb her human munching fetish? Regards and thanks to you! :D
thanks for this i've be trying to disipline my baby rabbit for almmost a year!!!
i have a question though i let my rabbits play in my backyard and we make this gate but my sister's rabbit always manages to jump up and escape we do all of this but she keeps doing it my rabbit listens and doesn't but she always escapes
sometimes we let my rabbit go outside and hers not to to disipline her but she does it anyway
helllllppp
caspar says:
2 years ago
Great advice for looking after naughty bunnies!