All my fault...

[Flakes]

I was playing with Dortmund on my bed this morning when the doorbell rang. I went to go get the package the UPS guy had, then I went to the bathroom. When I got back to my bedroom, Dortmund was off the bed. He must have fallen off.

Anyway I lured him out from under my bed with some dried strawberry and put him back into his cage. Now Dortmund is angry with me and whenever I go see him he hides in his hidey hole.

Apparently it is all my fault he fell off my bed. Either that or he is angry that I lured him out from his adventure under the bed.

 

[JBun]

Or he's hurt. If you haven't already, I would check for any signs of limping or injury, and also inspect the front teeth to make sure nothing is broken, Also I would make sure he is eating and drinking normally, as any changes in this can be a signal a rabbit is in pain.

 

[Flakes]

Thanks, will do

 

[Flakes]

So I called up the vet about an hour ago and they didn’t think I should worry too much. Just leave him in a small space and see if he gets better. I did schedule an appointment for Wednesday. But I am a little concerned he went into his hidey hole two hours ago after I looked at him to see if there were any visible wounds and he hasn’t come out. Usually when he hides he only hides for at most 5 minutes. I’m worried. Part of me wants to let him just rest and part of me wants to rush to the vet for a check up.

Right now, I think that If he hasn’t come out by breakfast tomorrow I’m taking him to the vet. An emergency check up is only $100 and I’m worried about the little dork.

 

[Flakes]

Just as I finished writing this, I heard him scratch himself, then he stretched, came out of his hiding spot and hopped over to his litter box for a hay snack. Still worried. But not as much.

 

[Watermelons]

As Jbun said you need to make sure he isnt hurt. Physically pick him up! Check his front teeth.
Move him somewhere open or a hallway and make him walk/hop down it. If hes not limping or favouring a limb he should be okay.

 

[Flakes]

I’m pretty sure he’s fine. He’s been doing zoomies and binkies for the last hour. I checked his teeth and they are fine too.

 

[Flakes]

Okay here is the situation.

I will admit that I enjoy playing with Dortmund on my bed. I have a little tunnel set up for him to hide/run through. And before he gets tired he usually spends a couple of hours doing zoomies and binkies across my sheets while I'm trying to fall asleep next to him. Usually he tires out and will cuddle up next to me and let me scratch his head and ears. I've learned to sleep to one side and he gets the other 2 thirds.

About a half an hour I was laying there trying to fall asleep and Dortmund was running around crazily. I felt him jump up onto my legs and then crawl down the other side where there was only a narrow bit of bed left over. A couple seconds later he slipped off of this narrow precipice and fell the two feet to the floor.

This time it was clear he wasn't hurt. I watched him quickly switch into investigation mode and he began exploring the floor of my bedroom. Every time I tried to scoop him up he hid under my bed, and then found his way out another side to explore my piles of dirty laundry, my USB cables, the boxes of Hay I keep for him, the underneath of my dresser drawer. He was having so much fun that he wasn't even responding to dried strawberries. I finally corralled him and put him back in his cage about 5 minutes ago.

Which leads me to a problem. I like playing with Dortmund on my bed. I can lay down and read or just curl up when I'm depressed, and usually he just flops down near my left hand and lets me pet him, sometimes for hours. But if he is going to keep falling off...

Part of me just wants to let him explore, but that would require a massive cleaning / rabbit proofing (something I've been putting off) but it doesn't solve the issue of falling off the side of the bed. Dortmund has a lot of energy. Sooner or later he will tumble again. I could surround my bed with X-Pen but that seems confining to me. Or I could just get rid of the Bed Frame and put my mattress on the ground. Or I could just accept that beds are no place for rabbits to run around and confine Dortmunds limited freedom to the small run I set up in the living room.

 

[Hermelin]

Bunny will also learn after a mistake they have done.

Had Odin once falling from a high table, that was the last time he was up on that table and he later learned the safe way to jump down from the bed.

But it wasn’t the last time he was daring as a kit and had to catch him a few times. I also put down pillows on the places he fell down from, so if he did something stupid he would often fall/ land on the pillows.

You can only do your best and try to prevent the dangers . Myself often had Odin up in the bed and he would often jump up onto the bed and snuggle up under the blanket and sleep :3

 

[Flakes]

Honestly my concern isn't that he is hurt, it is that he is angry with me for not letting him explore to his heart's content and my concerns about the amount of stuff I would have to do to rabbit proof my house to let him explore.

 

[Hermelin]

Bunnies are curious pets, but you can use that with changing the cage, put in new toys and change how you decorate the cage. He won’t be angry at you, it’s like how my dad often close my indoor bunny in the cabin for a few hours until we notice he’s gone.

My bunny will still chase after my dad and keep on being locked into the cabin a few times during the week.

I think the only time any of my bunnies got angry on me was when I accidentally stepped on their paws.

 

[Laggie]

Hello Flakes,
This is the first time I am posting on this website. I am curious as to how you prevent your bunny from leaving little poo balls all over the place. Our bunny is kept in the basement of our house. That’s where we do laundry and where we come in so we see her a lot. She has a cage but is allowed to be free range the whole time. She goes into the cage to eat. Her litter box is outside the cage. We had one inside the cage but she really didn’t use it. So now she uses the one outside but she still leaves poo balls everywhere she goes to mark her territory. I want to let her roam around upstairs in our house but this constant marking dries me crazy. Do you or anyone else know how to handle this? Also what do people use to remove urine so that the bunny doesn’t keep coming back to the same spot on the floor and using it as the toilet again?

 

[Augustus&HazelGrace]

@Laggie is she spayed?

 

[Laggie]

Yes I believe so.

 

[zuppa]

What high is your bed? Mine is a loft bed 195 cm high so I would worry but if your bed is just 40-50cm that is a silly high for a rabbit, maybe he just jumped down. Your problem is that your underbed and your bedroom is not rabbit-proof which isn't too difficult to fix, if you don't want to remove stuff from your underbed you can just block it with playpen panels or cc-grids or something, you can also make a corridor for him leaving your cables and other valuable/potentially dangerous things behind the panels.

Or you can get a few underbed boxes with lids and keep your laundry and your cables in them
https://www.ikea.com/us/en/search/products/?q=under bed box

 

[Augustus&HazelGrace]

@Laggie Typically a spayed rabbit will not urinate in places other than their litterbox IF they were properly litter trained. Stray poops are going to happen but if there are lots of them that leads me to the question of how long have you had her? Do you know for sure if she spayed? Most rescues will spay them but if you got them from another person then you should ask to know for sure because 1. females have an 80% chance of getting uterine cancer after 3-4 years old if not spayed. 2. Her litterbox habits should be near perfect if she is spayed. If you haven't had her that long and she is spayed then the territorial poops should die down soon.

 

[Lauren Kiernan]

Honestly my concern isn't that he is hurt, it is that he is angry with me for not letting him explore to his heart's content and my concerns about the amount of stuff I would have to do to rabbit proof my house to let him explore.

Consider a fun maze like this.
https://store.binkybunny.com/mobile/maze-haven-binkybunny-p15.aspx
Our lop loves to get into our room and hide under all the furniture. He must think they are caves and he makes it game when we try to get him out by going from one piece to another . So the maze have was perfect for his roo . He has 2 levels to lounge and hide and climb. He is on the top floor in this pic