1 year on, my rabbit is still pretty hostile.

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user 13875

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A question for the rabbit owners out there.

I've had a Netherland Dwarf for about a year now. We got her as a baby. Back then she was quite timid, but that's pretty normal for rabbits. I posted up here for advice on how to bond with her, and got some pretty good tips.

However over the course of the year, not only has she not gotten any more friendly or affectionate, she's remained really hostile and aggressive in general. When she's out and about, she's not scared of people in the least, she will walk by then and not care. however she will wander around digging, and if you walk by occasionally stamp her foot and pounce on your feet. Very territorial behavior.

The only time she will respond is when you give her food. She'll happily take it off you, then grunt at you as if to say "ok, you've given me my food, now get lost."

We've spent so much time trying to bond with it, reading up in books and on the net about what to do, however nothing has worked and she's just as impersonal as ever. We had her spayed about a month ago, firstly for health reasons but also to try and have her calm down, but that hasn't changed anything either.

I went to the pet shop today to buy her some snacks she really likes, and while I was there I saw this other Netherland Dwarf in a cage, it was so friendly, came up to me and costantly nuzzled my hand, it was adorable. I came back home and gave my rabbit the afforementioned snacks. It took it from me then snarled at me to go away. I've owned animals of different kinds for more than 20 years now, and I've never shown any form of anger towards them, but seeing this behavior and thinking of that other rabbit I saw today, I slammed the cage, shouted at it and stormed off. I've never been so angry at an animal in all my life. I was just so frustrated at it's lack of reciprication I was at wits end.

I really don't know what to do anymore. I think of the rabbit as family, like any animal I've had, but for the first time today I really considered just giving it away, or worse, just releasing it into the local park or something. It made me really upset to think this way, but I have no idea what to do anymore.

Any advice would be very much appreciated.
 
I'm also interested to know if rabbits can remain aggressive their whole life just due to their personality. After all, they are just like us and are all very different from each other, so of course there has to be some bad eggs right? Our Napoleon will go out of his way to attack us! He is so loved and cared for, but nothing we do works and he will just continue giving us cuts and bites and is so territorial and aggressive!

I had many times with Poe where I just cried and cried whilst holding him because I didn't even know what to do anymore. It was so heart breaking and took a big strain on my study and my relationship. My mum was so upset she got me another rabbit and took Poe to her place and now I am the happiest person alive with our angel Horatio.

We don't know what to do though anymore either, so he lives in a big outside concreate pen now right outside my room. After that, who knows. We can't find him a new home because no one will want an animal like that and I don't want him being thrown away - He is so beautiful and still a beautiful rabbit to us.

Sometimes it's hard not to give up though - I completely understand your situation. Right now we are looking for 'rehab' people in Australia who may pride themselves in rehabilitating aggressive animals and will have the time and expertise to help Poe. We just don't have anymore time to give him, but he has a warm home and lots of food and love, so as long as he have that we know he is happy and safe with us.
 
I ended up rehoming my extremely timid and downright hateful rabbit to someone saying they'd have more time to work with her with it. I had her for almost a year.
The main reason I had to rehome her was she started to injure my first rabbit in the same room. one would escape their cage and fight through the bars. Like, would break apart their cages(C&C). It wasn't safe.
 
Getting her fixed may help.

Some rabbits are aggressive from heritage..some people dont care if their breeding nasty parents.
 

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