How to stop in process bunny naughtiness?

[Kate Monster]

So Katie has become an insatiable carpet destroyer.  Luckily she’s only turned her attentions to my carpet that I keep under their pen and not the main carpet, I would like my security deposit back!  She seems to have discovered that it’s fun to dig and pull at it until it pulls up and then, because it’s cheap carpet, pull the strand she got until she has a big pile of pulled up carpet.  I’m working on trying to find her a fun alternative to doing this, but so far not much luck.  After the holidays when I get fresh loan money I’m going to just replace the carpet with the kind that has individual strands of carpet and maybe cut the old one up and let her destroy it, but I can’t afford that quite yet.  She ignores the diggy boxes and Spencer pees in them, so that’s no good!  But in the meantime, how do you guys get your buns to stop a naughty activity while they are actively doing it?  So far I’ve just been trying to gently shoo her away and then cover the spot she’s digging at up, but well, that’s not working all that well.  I put a phone book down hoping she’d turn her attentions to that, she peed on it, stood on the phone book and started digging in a different spot!  Or she’ll dig behind the pen where she’s hard to shoo.  And she’s soooo proud of her naughtiness that when I finally convince her to stop she binkies away!  What a brat! And Spencer keeps trying to eat the wood trim on the bottom of my couch.  I give him toys and baskets to eat, but how on earth do I stop him when he’s in the process of chewing it? I think they’re going through a rather late teenager phase.

[Stickerbunny]

I use different things for my two –

Powder is awesome and listens to me mostly so I just say “Powder, no” and if he doesn’t stop, I get up and walk towards him and he stops then.

Stickers is a brat and doesn’t like to listen. I say “No” to her she looks at me, flattens her ears and goes back to what she was doing. If I try to physically stop her, she’ll just keep digging unless I actually pick her up and move her. So two things work for her – most commonly I use a sharp, short, loud noise “EH!” and it gets her attention, if she does it again, I make the noise again, she figures out that means “Stop it” and will stop. If she’s being REALLY bad and just won’t listen no matter what I do, I have a squirt bottle filled with water and just one little jet gets used.

When you stop them, always give them something they like and are allowed to do their destructive behavior on. At first Stickers didn’t use diggy boxes either, but I tried a couple of different types and found one she likes. She likes digging on cloth, so I gave her a SECURE and safe cloth thing at the bottom of her dig box to dig on and covered it with balled up phone book pages. For chewing, I keep willow toys and chew sticks available and give them those – or cardboard toys they like. The behavior is natural, so you don’t want to stop it, just divert it.

[bunnyfriend]

I also use the “No.” method. You could also always make a sort of unpleasant squealing noise. I’ve heard some people use spray bottles.

[Elrohwen]

I use a “no” and if I don’t get a response after a couple seconds I bring out the spray bottle. I wouldn’t use one on a rabbit that got completely freaked out by it, but it works well for my two. Well, it works for Hannah – one spray and she will think twice about doing it again. I have to spray Otto at least three times before he even notices he’s wet, but at least then he stops chewing to groom the water off. Haha

[Michelle&Lolli]

Spray bottle. That’s what I eventually had to do with Eddie. I would also put him back in his pen whenever he decided to chew on something he wasn’t supposed to. But you can’t do that. I also bought some seagrass mats and that seemed to deter him a bit.

[Kate Monster]

OK, maybe I’ll give the spray bottle a try. I’ve done loud noises, usually a whistle, but that just causes them to stop, look at me, and start doing it again. lol. Spencer is hardly phased by the noise anymore. And sometimes Katie thumps at me.

I’m not sure where the digging came from with Kate, I swear I’d never seen her dig before I moved here, she’s apparently just figured out how fun it is. Now if only I could get her to enjoy digging anything I get her that she’s allowed to dig at! Also, it would be nice if Spencer didn’t pee on everything I got her to dig in. I bought her seagrass mats, he peed on those too. Sigh. He’s just way too litter trainable, anything that reminds him of a litter box, he pees or poops in or on. What a nut.

[Elrohwen]

Hannah is like that with seagrass – she sees it and thinks it must be some new sort of litter box. lol I stick with boxes for digging. We got one that was long and narrow and just big enough for them to crawl into. Oh boy was that exciting! They tunneled right out of the bottom. I wish I knew where to buy boxes that size because I’d get more (it came as the box for the spearfishing spear that DH ordered – not really something we’ll be buying more than one of)

[Kate Monster]

That’s an idea, maybe if I used a box that was oddly shaped and maybe had a top Spencer wouldn’t get so confused!

[Stickerbunny]

Whistles don’t phase my two either, they just perk their ears up. You have to make it an ANNOYING loud noise lol or thumping at them can work too, Stickers will stop if I thump, though sometimes she thumps right back at me before she runs away. lol

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