Hi everyone! About a month ago I brought home an adorable lionhead bun – she is now 3 months old and is wonderful in many ways. However, I am having some trouble with some of her behavior. I have two major problems – she is OBSESSED with hanging out under my bed, and I cannot for the life of me get her to return to her cage. I live in an apartment, and she has a very large cage in my sizable room that is complete with litter box, water/food, lots of toys, and tons of hay – however, it seems like she absolutely HATES being in it! I leave the door open and let her free roam my bedroom 90% of the time now, only closing the cage door when I go to sleep at night. When she is free to explore my room (which is safe and completely bunny proof) she goes straight for my bed and hangs out under it all day! When I first got her I tried everything to keep her out, just in case – she jumped over or knocked down stacks of boxes, chewed holes through cardboard reinforcements, and climbed/ripped up my comforter. In the brief periods that she couldn’t access under the bed, she ran back and forth, thumping, and completely ignored me. She seemed like she was distressed – and she got past any defenses that I tried – so I gave up.
Now, she is under there all the time. I open the cage door first thing in the morning and boom! Runs under the bed. Even when she has fresh hay and food in there, she doesn’t come out to eat it. When I lift the mattress to see what she is doing, she’s usually just lying down under there or nibbling on a cardboard box (there isn’t much of anything under my bed besides boxes). What worries me is that she doesn’t come out for hours on end, not even to eat or drink water! Isn’t this unusual? I try to tempt her out with treats, but she isn’t a very treat motivated bunny. I’ve tried carrots, banana, hay, kale, apple, pellets – she just sniffs it and hops away. This makes it very difficult to train her to go back to the cage at night. Nothing I do seems to work to get her in there, and it can take up to an hour of pleading and trying to finally get her in for the night! Sometimes I have to pick her up and put her in there, which she HATES, and she kicks so violently that I’m scared she’ll get hurt (she also does a lot of damage to my hands!) However, once she’s in, she’ll start drinking water and eating hay like she was thirsty and hungry after all!
This is where my biggest problem lies- there are times that she needs to be secured, and I can’t get her in without picking her up. For example, today there were inspections in my apartment, and all pets needed to be secure. I needed to go to work for the day, but she wouldn’t go in the cage for anything. I was going to be late and I was too worried about leaving her out. I ended up having to pick her up and put her in the cage, which was super difficult, and now that I’m home she seems to be mad at me. (She’s hiding under the bed again.) I don’t want my bunny to resent me, but I also don’t know how to get her to listen to me.. For the most part she seems like a happy bun, she lets me pet her and binkies/runs about when she decides to show herself. What can I do about the bed/cage situation? Thanks in advance!