Hello Everybunny!
I am the mama to a cute bunny boy named Zucchini (French mini lop, ~4lbs, 5.5 years old). I rescued him almost six months ago. Lately he has been a TERROR on my house plants, which I love almost as much as him. About a month ago, I awoke in the middle of the night to a crashing noise to find that he had jumped high onto the kitchen windowsill and knocked over all my baby succulents and eaten about half of them! It took everything in me not to cry out and yell at him, so I just put him firmly on the ground and tried to bunny proof the area. Despite my efforts he managed to do it again. The only way I got him to stop was by creating a barrier of cacti around the area, which he avoids because they are pokey.
Well lately he’s been doing two really annoying (and slightly devastating) things:
1. He figured out how to jump on the windowsill and scale it until he gets to my bed, which is adjunct the windowsill in my room (he is free range my entire studio apartment and has no cage). I bring him on my bed a lot at night to cuddle and do work on my computer and he only pees if he really forgets to go and falls asleep from being petted and doesn’t wake up in time (it seems to be more of a “senior moment” than marking behavior). But the catch is he doesn’t know how to get down from the bed by himself because it is so high, so I lift him off. When he scaled the windowsill to my bed he ended up peeing on it while I was at work yesterday, I estimate because he couldn’t get back down. I assume he eventually jumped down. Hopefully he has figured out how to jump off and the pee issue will be resolved, but I am wondering how to deter him from peeing on the bed (or how to discipline him if he does/ teach him not to) in case it is a marking behavior and I am just completely off base lol.
2. The WORST thing that happened was he ate my most prized orchid and destroyed the flowers of my other orchid. The orchid he completely obliterated is worth over $50 and it is a rare breed. My heart was broken when I saw it, but I didn’t know how to discipline him because to be fair I wasn’t home until late yesterday and maybe he was just hungry and desperate. I feel bad but I am really mad at him and I don’t know how to handle my anger. Also I just want some compassion from others for this because I know it sounds dumb but my orchids mean so much to me and I had them years before I had him. I am heartbroken. How do I keep him off the window sill, even if I can’t keep him from the bed? I was thinking of using NIC grids, but I am rather anal and I like my house to be beautiful and aesthetically pleasing at all times and I don;t like the look of the grids. Sigh. But I hate the destruction of my plants much more than some unsightly obstructions…
Thanks for listening! Let me know what you all think.
Sophia