Need help ASAP! stop my rabbit from stealing food

[sashacharliexx]

Hi all,

Hoping for some training tips for my rabbit, we have 2 house rabbits one male and one female. The male belongs to my younger sister, and the female belongs to me.

She is a hybrid and absolutely lovely, originally brought to keep the male company, and they are now best of friends. However she is a very mischievous little bunny. She has a habit of knocking over your tea so she can drink it, stealing food off your plate, stealing the cats food and many other little behaviour bugs.

I need to stop her doing this as my parents will sell her as they end up locking them both in their cage and feel it is unfair on both of them. I have a month to train her and I really do not want to sell her so I am desperate for some help.

Please, please help!

Thanks in advance

Sasha

 

[cassie]

You will have a lot better luck training yourselves than training the rabbit. As for knocking over your tea, keep your eyes open so that doesn't happen. Put the cat's food up on a table or something so the rabbit can't reach it. The first step in handling any animal is that you have to be smarter than they are. Sometimes it isn't easy.

 

[Chickerdoodle13]

I tend to think that rabbits are one animal that does better in a contained area whether that's a large cage, enclosed in a puppy pen type set up, or in a room that has been extensively rabbit proofed. Rabbits tend to get themselves in a lot of trouble, especially by chewing things like electrical cords. This would probably be your best bet. As long as the cage or pen is large enough, it is not cruel to keep them contained. This would give you the best chance of keeping her out of trouble!

 

[ILuvMyFlock]

I would recommend building a rabbit run, I used to keep Robin Hood my rabbit inside but I felt like he'd be happier outside since rabbits love grass and clover. A rabbit cage inside just doesn't seem that big, not much room for them to hop around, in outdoor runs they can run, hop, and play.

As for training a rabbit in a month to not knock over things, I doubt it's possible, and it's unfair to even blame the rabbit considering it doesn't even know it did anything wrong. The best place for the rabbit even though it's hard is outdoors in a rabbit run or hutch.