Moody Bunny

[Niki]

My rabbit Toby is about three years old and he is a rescue. He lived with a family that kept him outside in a small crate made of chicken wire. When it rained, snowed, hailed, ect. it all fell on him. The only thing he had was a towel about half the size of his body. He’s an American breed rabbit. I’ve had Toby for about a year and a half now and it’s definitely been an uphill battle bonding with him but we are finally improving. He can be petted and kissed now and will even lay down for us to pet him. The woman I rescued him from didn’t admit to any animal abuse, obviously, but the living condition was horrific and there were a lot of small children running around so considering that they were entirely unsupervised it isn’t impossible that they might have been hurting him. 

Toby grunts, growls, honks, lunges, scratches, bites. The whole nine yards. Again, it’s gotten much better. I can feed him without putting on oven mitts and I can even kiss the top of his head. But this harmony doesn’t always last and sometimes after being petted for ten minutes he immediately goes to whip around and try to bite our hands. My mom loves my rabbit and every morning before work she goes to visit Toby in his room. She is always bringing him some kind of snack whether it’s a handful of kale or a slice of banana. He has started to look forward to her going to visit him every morning and she says that he is usually sitting and waiting for her. After she feeds him she’ll sit down in her chair and let him run around. My mom wears blue jeans every morning and before work she wears black house slippers. Toby lets her feed him and pet his head but he also chases her around the room, charging at her and nipping at her. He runs around her legs (not in a mating pattern) and growls at her slippers. When she’s sitting down he’ll run over to her and start bonking her leg with his nose. Sometimes she’ll pet him but other times before she has the chance he just sinks his teeth into her jeans. It doesn’t break her skin through the jeans and through her socks but it still hurts. She tells him “Ow, Toby!” and lifts her legs away from him but he is insistent and keeps jumping around her, lunging at her, and nipping. Meanwhile he is also running around the room doing binkies and loves being petted by her. Also, if she is wearing her black cotton pants and no shoes then he doesn’t nip! 

Toby hasn’t bitten me in a long time, so I don’t really have a similar experience. I’m not afraid of him after so many hours of attempting to bond and we get along pretty good I’d say. Sometimes he will lunge at my feet too, but I haven’t really noticed a pattern in my clothing that sets him off. Most of the time if he lunges at me it’s for me to hurry up and put down whatever food I have. 

Does anyone have any suggestions? Is it my mom’s clothing he doesn’t like or is it her or something that she is doing? We were thinking that maybe the previous owner chased him or hit him during one of his escape attempts and she was wearing blue jeans but I don’t know if his memory would hold on to something like that. And of course Toby has never been physically hurt since he’s come into our home. Toby is neutered, by the way. 

Thank you! 

[Benthebunny]

Possibly squeal and cry whenever he bites you. He will learn it hurts.

[tobyluv]

Hello and welcome to Binky Bunny! It’s so good that you rescued Toby, and got him out of that home. I had a Toby once myself, as you can see by my username. Even though Toby is thought of as a male name, my bunny was female. She just looked like a Toby. Here are some articles on aggression. Maybe they will be helpful to you. http://rabbit.org/category/behavior/aggression/.

[mango]

Wow! So glad that you rescued this bun!

Is he neutered? If not, that would help calm him down quite a bit.

I don’t have anything else too helpful to add but just wanted to say my otherwise well-behaved buns don’t seem to like it when I wear shoes either. They nip at my shoes but never at my bare feet nor socks.

[Niki]

Sometimes the name just fits! The previous owners called him Toby Mac, but we ended up dropping the Mac. Now he is Toby or Toblerone if we are feeling fancy. Thank you for the article! 

[Niki]

Thank you! I’ll tell my family to all start trying this and hopefully he’ll understand.

[Niki]

He is neutered. When I went to rescue him the previous owners said that he doesn’t leave his cage except when he escapes so I had no chance to find out his personality then. I knew I didn’t want to see the previous owners again so I arranged to pick him up after he was neutered. I’ll try keeping shoes out of his room! 

[Author]

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