Hello bunny lover, hope you all doing well. Today, I’m gonna be teaching you not just how to get your rabbit to like you, Because that’s like the bare minimum. I’m gonna teach you how to get them to love you, okay? I’m talking about that Littlefoot and his mother in Land Before Time kind of love, like Simba and his father in The Lion King kind of love. So if you want to learn how to get to this point, please keep reading and share it with your friends to motivate me to write unlimited bunny content!
Here is one of my biggest pet peeves: when people think bunnies are not capable of love. They just look at them like they’re dumb animals, like they’re not as worthy or deserving of the same kind of life as a dog or a cat. And so that’s what this site is all about: breaking that mold. Now, many of you may already have great relationships with your bunnies, and that’s wonderful. But I know that the majority of you really struggle in this department, and today I’m going to give you five very simple tips on how you can get your rabbit to love you and like you and not be afraid of you or be mad at you.
Many of you think that your bunnies don’t like you. The most common thing that I hear is, “Oh, my bunny hates me,” and I can promise you your bunny doesn’t hate you. You just haven’t gotten them to open up yet, or maybe you’re doing something wrong, which is what we’re gonna diagnose in this article.
Speak with your bunny
Okay, so the first tip I’m gonna give you guys is to learn to speak bunny. We need to learn to communicate with them. That is the biggest marker in any relationship, right? It’s communication. Are they afraid of you? Are they really stressed out? Maybe they don’t like their habitat. Maybe you’re subjecting them to a very scary situation. Everybody comes from a different background. Some of them are rescued off of the street, some of them are adopted from the shelter, some are bought from a breeder or a store. Maybe a rabbit didn’t come from trauma, so you can eliminate that option, obviously. It is kind of a process of elimination here. Maybe you have other pets, and your dog or your cat is creating a lot of stress for your bunny. But you really want to pay attention to all the behaviors, all the signs. Are their ears perked up? Are they flattened out? Are they hiding? Are they hunched up? Are they nipping at you? Are they lunging at you? I’ve made many article about how can you understand bunny body language, you can find it here.
Let your bunny comes to you
The second tip is to let your bunny come to you. This is so incredibly important in this process because you don’t want to force your rabbit to do anything. That should never, ever be the case. You want your rabbit to voluntarily want to spend time with you and want to come to you and hop over to you and, you know, kiss you and all that stuff. I sound like a broken record when I say this, but they’re prey animals, so they constantly feel as though they are going to be eaten. And so you have to work around that. You have to show them that you are not a threat, that you are not a predator. One of the great tips of all time is laying on the ground, getting down on their level. Do your homework on the floor, read a book, watch some TV. I promise you they will hop on over to you and figure out what the heck is going on.
Affection
That’s when you can move into step number three, which is slow affection. What I mean by this is start off slow, start off gradual. A lot of people, their first instinct is to just be really aggressive with the affection, like picking the bunny up, carrying them, holding them, trying to cuddle with them, basically forcing yourself onto your bunny. I actually think that rabbits are more like humans than most other pets that I’ve seen. Just like you wouldn’t trust the first person that you meet off the street, they’re not going to trust you when you first bring them home or introduce them to other family members, etc. They’re going to be really apprehensive and almost, I would say, suspicious of you. So once they do actually start coming to you voluntarily, that’s when you can reach out your arm, reach out your hand, kind of slowly get in there, slowly pat on the head. Try to stick to the head area first. Don’t go for the torso or the bum or the tummy or the feet or the tail, especially the tail. I mean, they really don’t like their tails being touched. They like the nose rubs, the head rubs, the ear rubs. When you pet them, they think they are being groomed. You are essentially simulating a grooming session, and that, in rabbit language and rabbit hierarchy, is such a sign of respect and a sign of love.
Share a space
Fourth tip: You’ve got to share a space, a living space indoors, with your bunny or bunnies if you have more than one. Here’s the thing: if you separate yourself from your bunny, you’re essentially saying, “You belong there; I belong out here in the free world.” Okay, your bunny’s never gonna be able to fully integrate with you and your family. They’re not gonna be able to get to know you, your mannerisms, your voice, your footsteps, your routine. Once you and your bunnies are on the same schedule, then you are now already becoming more aligned. Your rabbits—they’re just never gonna have a tight relationship with you if you just visit them like twice a day to feed them and then walk out the door. That’s just not sustainable, and they’re never gonna love you. I mean, let’s just be honest. All they’re really gonna know you for is, like, “Oh, the food lady” or “the food guy.”
Treats
Okay, last and final tip: treats. Food is the way to a rabbit’s heart. Same with me. I don’t know about you guys, but if you cook a good meal for me, I’m all about it. I’m there. I will immediately fall in love with you head over heels. Rabbits are the same. They like food. They are food-motivated. Essentially, you want them to associate you with something that is positive, something that makes them feel good, feel happy, something that satisfies their needs. Food is a way to break the ice. There’s much more depth to it than that, but this is how you start to win over their heart, because you’re taking away the fear that you could possibly be a very bad person. Figure out what your bunny’s favorite treat is. You can always use a slice of natural fruit like banana or apple. Just make sure that you are being moderate with the sugar and you are not overloading them on sugar because that can be very, very harmful. You can always break treats in half if you want to disperse them that way. But at the end of the day, it’s all about positive reinforcement.
And like I always say, guys, there’s always gonna be the exception, like the bunny that has just had a really rough life or something happened and they’re just not getting there as fast as maybe another rabbit would. To that, I say patience. But everything that is learned can be unlearned. Everything is fixable. Maybe the rabbit isn’t going to turn out to be the most outgoing thing in the world, which is okay. That’s fine. The least you can do is just show them love, show them that there is good in the world, and they will catch on eventually.
My question of the day to you is: how long did it take your bunnies to trust you? I’m very, very curious about this because I bet everyone’s gonna have a different answer.
So that’s it for this article. I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you learned a little something. Again, patience is a virtue. That is all I will say. Take your time with it. Don’t rush it. I promise you, sooner rather than later, you and your bunny are gonna be loving on each other every day. You’re gonna thank me for this article.