Fearless Bunny; how do i teach her no?

[FishFanatic]

Hey there..! It’s been ages sense my last post; but for anyone who might vaguely remember; Rorschach is doing great! Very healthy; very very friendly, and is even mostly litter boxed trained! I’m very proud of her; but it seems i also did too much socilizing with her when i first got her, if that’s even possible. She’s fearless, like i said up there. On one hand; i am so glad! Even if things spook her, she hops oven and trys seeing what they are.

Dog barking at her while she’s out on the deck with us? No issue! She just watches them.
Person comes in the door? She runs over; and does endless circle-eights around their legs as they try to pet her. (And once they stop, she chews on their shoes… That kinda ruins the ‘sweet fluffy bunbun’ image they have of her pretty fast…)
Fan on during the summer? Not anymore. We needed to put them all out of her reach because she kept trying to nock them over to stand on them. (How does a tiny rabbit even do that..?! And why?)
Dog is trying to eat her food..? Nah. Ror hops into her bowl instead and steals it. (We now use a doggy gate to keep her out of the kitchen where our 100-pound dog’s food is. Did i mention Ror also chases her around the house? She loves chewing on her tail.  

She doesn’t love going for car rides; but tolerates them because we go each week to some nursing homes to let the folks living there pet her. (She knows to sit in her little ‘bunny bed’ and let them pet her.)

She loves to harass people; and enjoys jumping onto our beds to check on us if we try sleeping. (Her favorite game is to hop up on a old rollaway we have for company if we have it out; and do the bunny 500’s for a second or two; stop, stare at the guest, then dart off and hop onto the floor, run around the room, then charge back onto the bed.)

All these things are great.
It also helped when we moved into the new house: 
I could set up my entire bedroom so it was bunny-proofed before we got moved in. So now Ror is out of her cage all the time, unless somethings going on or it’s bedtime. If we leave i can just scoot her into my bedroom so she’s not cooped up; it’s nice. 
When we moved it only took her a day or two to settle in; although she is not a fan of the tile. But she is a fan of the walls.

They are her favorite chew toy in the world.

We have about 15 feet of wall that have the bottom four inches pulled off; the paper/paint. She doesn’t eat it (thank goodness!!!) but my mom is less than pleased. She says she would insist that i keep her in a cage; but, apparently the little fluff ball won her over to the point where she feels bad even keeping her in one at night.

So my biggest issue is how do i teach her no..? She knows her name; and she knows come; but i’ve been trying sense the day i got her to teach her no; and it still hasn’t clicked. Mainly because they call for sharp noises; or a clap; and a ‘no’ to be said. The issue here; is that Ror doesn’t care about any of that. 

She can hear us if we screech and tell her no, like when she went through her nipping stage. 

She used to nip my arms and legs all the time; and no amount of squeaking worked. And if i tried to move her; she’d start growling and try nipping my hands! Luckily we got past that with loud squeaks, ‘No!’, and having a towel nearby to pick her up with and put her into a time-out cat-kennel for five minuet time outs. And lots of different fruits and veggies as treats.

But; she never did learn the whole no thing; and she’s shredding up the walls like mad. 

Clapping doesn’t work to get her attention; she just continues what she’s doing. Dropping a chair onto the ground gets no results; she comes over and starts climbing on it instead. Shaking change makes her look at you; but she won’t stop what she’s doing. 

I love her; but i thought rabbits were supposed to be easily-spooked critters you need to be careful not to give a heart attack! She’s a hilarious little rabbit; but i’m sorta at a lost of what to do. Time outs don’t seem to be working for the wall.

She does have other things to chew and shred. She has pear limbs; ranging from thumb-thick to thinner than a pencil. She’s also a shredder; she has a few things to choose from. Newspaper i have under my birds stand (Clean! Nothing can get onto it! Not even feathers), Bird Feathers (No matter how often i sweep; she seems to magically find them…), a few phone books, a antler a friend got for our dog (who never chews anything), and of course my nice lovely antique desk when i’m not in the room to tell her no.  

This is in addition to hay in her litterboxs. 

Does anyone here have tips? Or at least something i can do to protect the walls..? Does bitter apple really work? Can a boil up some pepers for a few hours to make peppery-water to try making the walls not as fun to chew..?

Should we just decide to get rid of this house and move into one made of hay and sticks? (Pretty sure my mom would love hearing that one)

Quick Edit!

She is afraid of the vacuum; but she only hops around five feet away; turns around, and watches it. Even that’s fading off as she gets older.

[Mimsy]

She sounds like a lot like my little bun. She’s still just a youngster, so I can tell you what we’ve done so far. I’ll be reading this thread myself for idea’s!

Dog food-we only feed our dog at specific times. Those times ms Willow is not getting free range of the house. Since we put her in her pen when we go to bed, I put out the dog food then and just pick it up in the morning before we release the monster. My dog is too polite and if the bun moves in on food he will back away. We used to have a pet skunk (rip Elliot), that would stomp at the dogs if food was involved and for some reason it terrified them. they seem to think small fuzzy creatures should always get their way now.

Clapping has no effect on Willow. She might look up, but then she goes back to what she is doing. She will come to her name, but she thinks she should get a treat then. I usually just pick her up and remove her from said wall, bed, ect and put her next to her chew toy. I figure, she isn’t super fond of being picked up, so it’s a sorta punishment. Though she isn’t a bun who gets super disturbed by it. I’ve came to the conclusion that it’s much more satisfying to chew something that doesn’t move. So I’ve taken big slices of pear tree and drilled holes in them. I then attached then with sisal rope to the sides of her pen. that way she has things to chew, that don’t move around on her. I also wove some cardboard through the pen for a different texture to chew on.

We also picked up, but yet to put on the house, those plastic corner pieces for walls. since her favorite parts are the places that the wall takes a turn I figure we can at least protect those corners. http://www.homedepot.com/p/Trimaco-1-1-8-in-x-1-1-8-in-x-4-ft-Plastic-Corner-Guard-Commercial-01184G/100118843

Baseboards and door frames, I’ve yet to come up with a plan for yet.

We’ve got split loom on all the wires, though my daughter has learned the hard way that leaving her unprotected ipod cord laying around does not bode well.

So far we haven’t had that much damage done to the actual house, but I’ve got my ear out f or any munching while she’s awake and just keep encouraging her to chew on the “correct” things. She mostly stays in the room I’m in so it’s not too bad.

Good luck to both of us!

[BB & Tiny]

Mine usually listen to no or clapping for some things. My couches didn’t fare as well. BB has left many bald spots and it took me awhile and some reading to set a spray bottle on stream and squirt him, but it works on him.

Josephine came to us and started digging in the couches, like they’d not suffered enough abuse, lol. I squirted her also and it worked. However I couldn’t be on top of her 24/7 so I put a throw over the couch she could dig at.

When they were bonding loose in the living room and he would begin to chase her, I’d squirt him. It stopped him in his tracks. I haven’t had to pick up that squirt bottle in months, thankfully ! I bought a really good one at the beauty supply shop, cheap ones have no effect. In fact I’m quite sure i heard BB laughing at the first one.

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