Is this... odd behavior? Should I be worried?

[SandaraDominic]

I just brought my rabbit home from my girlfriend's place a couple days ago (she has been taking care of him for about a month). She bought a harness for him and had been taking him outside for walks which I thought was a pretty neat idea since the cage we currently have right now is a bit small for a rabbit his size. He needed the exercise.

These last two days, I've been trying to take him out of the cage for some exercise around the house. My house is pretty messy and there's stuff all over the place so I can't leave him walking around unattended. I decided to keep the cage door open but I hooked up a leash to his harness and tied it down so that he can't stray too far from the cage. He lets me put the harness on no problem but for some reason he wouldn't come out the cage. It's kind of strange since he never used to be this passive. For some reason, now he would just hop out of his cage then quickly hop back in. So I gave up and removed the leash but I kept the harness on. I closed up the cage door to do a little clean up on the floor around it.

I had been vacuuming for about a minute when I accidentally sucked up a sock by accident. I thought to myself "oh crap!" because I didn't want to clog it up so I shut off the vacuum cleaner immediately. Half a second later, the rabbit completely freaks out and starts running around like mad inside his cage. He starts rolling around and pretty much knocking everything over. Then he slams into the cage door open and runs out then jumps back in and falls down into the cage and begins twitching. I was like "omg, is the harness hurting him?". Then he just rolls back on to his feet and slumps over like a tired dog. The whole thing lasted 10 seconds and scared the hell out of me. I thought he was having a heart attack or something. I went over to remove the harness and it didn't seem to be hurting him at all... Very confused, I just left him alone for awhile. Now he's back to normal, drinking water, eating... Man wtf happened?

 

[NorthernAutumn]

I can think of a few reasons...

New place: he's been gone for a month, maybe he's forgotten about these surroundings a bit, and is being cautious with concern for predators/the unknown.

Harness: Has he worn his harness recently? Has he ever reacted badly to it before (not this extreme though? )

Seizure: Common to white, blue-eyed buns, but can occur in others due to neurological disorder. But if this has never ever happened before, I doubt this is the cause.

Finally, (and I'm pretty sure this is probably it) he may have flipped out about the vacuum noise. Noisy beast turns on very close to him, expels dust and earsplitting noises, shocking the bunny's senses. Vaccuum makes a weird sucking noise (your sock, which would change the vacuum sound tone), and then is suddenly silent. He is suddenly aware of his harness ( goes down around his back and under his armpits - an unusual feeling for him at this point), and believes he has been caught by a predator in this "unfamiliar" place.

Bunny proceeds to attempt escape from predator, to no avail, until he is completely exhausted.

There's my best guess .

Keep an eye on him for the next few days; see if anything else sets him off... Poor little guy! I hope you have a tasty treat to offer him, maybe help him relax a bit...
Find a cardboard box for him to huddle in- that should improve his sense of security as he gets used to your place again.
Can you give him a temporary run area?

(By the way, welcome to RO! Always nice to see another Canadian here )

 

[Amy27]

I agree with Autumn. I think it will take sometime for your bun to get use to your place and putting that with the vacuum and the strange noise it made when the sock got caught scared him. I would try to keep things as low key as possible for the next few days and let him out to explore and get use to his surroundings again.