Aggression AFTER spaying

[DakotaSkye]

Hello everyone,
I'm having an issue with my year old lionlop/dwarf mix, Freya. She used to be the sweetest girl, then she hit puberty. She was chinning everything, she was food aggressive, and she grunted and humped things quite regularly. We knew it was time to get her spayed.

However, it's been 2.5 weeks since the spay, and while she's no longer displaying sexual behavior, her aggression has increased. She never used to lunge or growl at us, and now she does it several times a day.

She won't usually bite, but she'll run her face into our hands if we get too close and/or place her teeth on whatever she can get. She's never broken the skin, but she's obviously angered if we get too close. And I don't even dare put my hand in her cage. Even if we don't approach her she'll come at us in an aggressive way. It's so unlike her. She still approaches us to be petted, but she's unpredictable; even the sound /motion of our hands on the carpet can set her off.
The rest of the time, she's prefectly happy and binkying like she always does, so it's not agression because of pain. The only thing I can think of is a lasting hormonal response. But when does that typically subside? I've read anywhere from 3 weeks to 3 months. Has anyone experienced this before? Please help; I miss my normally sweet little girl.

 

[kuniklos]

You are not allow with this. My male chocolate Tan was humpy and bitey when we first got him. After he was neutered the humping slowed down and then stopped. But he started to dig and bite at us. He hadn't done the digging before, and never bite us so much or so hard. He also completely stopped licking us.

He "boxes" with his front paws now when he's grumpy, but he's gotten much better. He was fixed in February and now he doesn't bite or dig as much (once a week he will try), but he still boxes at us pretty often. My vet had said it would take time for his hormone levels to level out. Which seems to have been true.

 

[DakotaSkye]

Thank you for your help and support, Shaina. It helps me feel better knowing I'm not alone in this. Freya would box sometimes, though very rarely, when she was irritated with a toy, or at the cage door if we weren't quick enough to let her out. But she had never ever shown any aggression other than that.

I find it strange that, since her hormone levels should have lowered immediately after spaying, aggressive behaviors have increased. I wouldn't be worried so much if this was something that she had been doing since puberty.

She also appears to be more fearful than she's ever been. We got her from people who brought all their rabbits, as babies, to a preschool, to educate them on proper pet ownership, and she was always a little angel. In fact, she loved kids. She would always run right up to our little niece and lay down to be petted. Now she cowers in a corner whenever anyone strange tries to approach her.

Though I've had three rabbits previously (all females), this is the first that we spayed, so I wasn't really sure what to expect.

I guess I'll just hope she calms down in time. Thanks for your encouragement.

P.S. The bunny in your photo is absolutely ADORABLE

 

[Tweetiepy]

I'm not sure if this is different with females but my male Popcorn got fixed on Feburary 18 and just now he seems to have calmed down. He used to lunge and attack if I had the scnet from my other male on me, but yesterday, I had a piece of fur off Peaches (who for some reason had a chunk of fur attached with something in his cage) so I took that and held it with small clamps, and Popcorn actually liked it. I think it takes about 6-8 weeks for the hormones to completely die down.

I wish you luck