radon
in
bunnyowners
never give up
So I have been reading/commenting on some posts tonight, and it made me reflect on how far I have come in relations with my current bunny.
To recap- I had an elder bun pass last November who I had lived with since early 1997. He was a darling little being from the moment I captured him, even though that involved several hours of me lying on the ground in a parking lot and eventually pulling him out from underneath a car by whatever I was able to grab onto. I can only remember one instance of him being even semi-violent, and that was maybe 7 years ago when he nipped at my finger after I had been poking at his nose. (As I recall, I was touching his nose repeatedly and remarking about how cute it was, he was apparently not so amused based on his reaction, but he didn't actually bite me or draw blood or anything like that).
So when I adopted my current bun in '09, I was not at all prepared for what I was in store for. She was vocal. I never knew rabbits made any noise, much less the panoply of noises that have come out of this bun. Clearly she was at worst completely terrified, and at best rather pissed off. A few months after I adopted her, I had to go out of town and left my husband in charge of feeding. She bit him as he tried to reach into her cage to get her food bowl.
When I let her out to roam around the room, she would pee everywhere! This was also never my experience with my elder bun. He was essentially box-trained from the moment I got him. He just picked a spot to go in and only went there (granted over the years we had some spraying experiences as we got various other pets into the home and he was not neutered, but that's a different story). I was used to my boy marking by rubbing his cheeks on anything and everything he got next to. New bun just urinated in pools all over the place.
So then we had a room covered in plastic, as I didn't want her to be confined to a cage all the time. But she still seemed very unhappy, so being able to provide her some freedom was sort of underwhelming to me. My elder bun had been allowed to free-roam outside in the yard, he would just come back in when he was ready, and I knew that I could just go outside and pick him up if I needed to bring him in before he was ready. I loved that he had that sort of freedom, and I couldn't fathom new bun ever being able to have that if I couldn't even get near her without her turning into a grunting freaked out mess.
So suffice it to say, I was really ill-equipped to know what to do to help my terrified little girl. So by this fall I resorted to leaving her in her cage and just gave her space and distance. I gave her time to be unbothered by what I wanted for her. After elder bun passed in November, I attached her cage to his via a walkway to give her more space and I again waited. I went into her room and I gave her treats and I waited. Eventually we got to the point where when I went into the room she is in, she would hop up to the part of the cage(s) that was nearest me, instead of hiding in the back like she used to do.
A couple of weeks ago she let me pick her up, but what was most amazing was that during that entire exchange she did not vocalize. Nothing like her historic grunts. At this point I realized it had been a long time since I had heard her clucking and grunting. And she didn't bite me. Didn't even try.
Last week I had an amazingly successful nail-clipping session. Tonight she again let me pick her up, and I petted her all over the place as she sat with me and devoured the parsley I had for her.
So I just wanted to share this story in case it might help someone else have hope for a better relationship with their bun. This community is great, but you see all these cool rabbits doing this fun stuff and you hear so much about what fun the owners are having, and I worry about the people whose first bun is a bun like my current girl. Fortunately for me my first real experience was with an exceptionally easy bun to live with, but not everyone is going to get a gem like that their first time around. Some people are going to get my current girl- the grunty peeing scary bun that you think might attack you at any moment.
I should also come clean and admit that I can't take credit for what a good bun my old man was. He just came that way. In many respects I was a terrible rabbit owner. I never knew rabbits were heat-sensitive until after I moved from Florida (where he lived outdoors on my porch, even in the scorching summers). It was some years after I had him before I learned that any old regular rabbit pellet was not the best choice and he should be on a timothy-based pellet. It is true that he was at least 14 years old when he passed, but in many respects that was in spite of my care and not because of it.
I hope new rabbit owners can take couple of things from my experience. Namely that it is never too late to educate yourself and if you have an unruly bun, have a bit of patience. Don't think that just because your bun is not as easy to live with as some that you read about here that s/he can never have that kind of life.
For my part, I hope that one day I can let new bun have the yard privileges that my old bun enjoyed without me having to take any particular effort. As it is, I never imagined that I would even be able to pick her up as easily as I could today.
Sorry for the crazy long post, but if it helps even just a few people have hope for a better relationship with their buns I will have accomplished my goal :)
To recap- I had an elder bun pass last November who I had lived with since early 1997. He was a darling little being from the moment I captured him, even though that involved several hours of me lying on the ground in a parking lot and eventually pulling him out from underneath a car by whatever I was able to grab onto. I can only remember one instance of him being even semi-violent, and that was maybe 7 years ago when he nipped at my finger after I had been poking at his nose. (As I recall, I was touching his nose repeatedly and remarking about how cute it was, he was apparently not so amused based on his reaction, but he didn't actually bite me or draw blood or anything like that).
So when I adopted my current bun in '09, I was not at all prepared for what I was in store for. She was vocal. I never knew rabbits made any noise, much less the panoply of noises that have come out of this bun. Clearly she was at worst completely terrified, and at best rather pissed off. A few months after I adopted her, I had to go out of town and left my husband in charge of feeding. She bit him as he tried to reach into her cage to get her food bowl.
When I let her out to roam around the room, she would pee everywhere! This was also never my experience with my elder bun. He was essentially box-trained from the moment I got him. He just picked a spot to go in and only went there (granted over the years we had some spraying experiences as we got various other pets into the home and he was not neutered, but that's a different story). I was used to my boy marking by rubbing his cheeks on anything and everything he got next to. New bun just urinated in pools all over the place.
So then we had a room covered in plastic, as I didn't want her to be confined to a cage all the time. But she still seemed very unhappy, so being able to provide her some freedom was sort of underwhelming to me. My elder bun had been allowed to free-roam outside in the yard, he would just come back in when he was ready, and I knew that I could just go outside and pick him up if I needed to bring him in before he was ready. I loved that he had that sort of freedom, and I couldn't fathom new bun ever being able to have that if I couldn't even get near her without her turning into a grunting freaked out mess.
So suffice it to say, I was really ill-equipped to know what to do to help my terrified little girl. So by this fall I resorted to leaving her in her cage and just gave her space and distance. I gave her time to be unbothered by what I wanted for her. After elder bun passed in November, I attached her cage to his via a walkway to give her more space and I again waited. I went into her room and I gave her treats and I waited. Eventually we got to the point where when I went into the room she is in, she would hop up to the part of the cage(s) that was nearest me, instead of hiding in the back like she used to do.
A couple of weeks ago she let me pick her up, but what was most amazing was that during that entire exchange she did not vocalize. Nothing like her historic grunts. At this point I realized it had been a long time since I had heard her clucking and grunting. And she didn't bite me. Didn't even try.
Last week I had an amazingly successful nail-clipping session. Tonight she again let me pick her up, and I petted her all over the place as she sat with me and devoured the parsley I had for her.
So I just wanted to share this story in case it might help someone else have hope for a better relationship with their bun. This community is great, but you see all these cool rabbits doing this fun stuff and you hear so much about what fun the owners are having, and I worry about the people whose first bun is a bun like my current girl. Fortunately for me my first real experience was with an exceptionally easy bun to live with, but not everyone is going to get a gem like that their first time around. Some people are going to get my current girl- the grunty peeing scary bun that you think might attack you at any moment.
I should also come clean and admit that I can't take credit for what a good bun my old man was. He just came that way. In many respects I was a terrible rabbit owner. I never knew rabbits were heat-sensitive until after I moved from Florida (where he lived outdoors on my porch, even in the scorching summers). It was some years after I had him before I learned that any old regular rabbit pellet was not the best choice and he should be on a timothy-based pellet. It is true that he was at least 14 years old when he passed, but in many respects that was in spite of my care and not because of it.
I hope new rabbit owners can take couple of things from my experience. Namely that it is never too late to educate yourself and if you have an unruly bun, have a bit of patience. Don't think that just because your bun is not as easy to live with as some that you read about here that s/he can never have that kind of life.
For my part, I hope that one day I can let new bun have the yard privileges that my old bun enjoyed without me having to take any particular effort. As it is, I never imagined that I would even be able to pick her up as easily as I could today.
Sorry for the crazy long post, but if it helps even just a few people have hope for a better relationship with their buns I will have accomplished my goal :)