Rabbits are also considered to be filthy creatures. Rabbits, on the other hand, make excellent indoor pets because, like cats, they can be litter box conditioned.
You can teach your rabbits tricks if you’ve ever wondered. They are intelligent and enjoy learning by play, which they are praised for.
Your bunny can be taught to run agility courses, fetch, hop, and spin on command with practice and patience.
Rabbits must be taught. They chew, flop around, and poop a lot, but they might be more useful by spinning in circles around our feet on orders.
This article will teach you how to house train a rabbit and how to progressively reduce the amount of prompting needed to get your bunny to perform tricks.
Important Steps for How to house train a rabbit
- You need to get proper direction about how to train a baby rabbit. Here are some tips.
- If an accident occurs, use a paper towel to mop up the pee and pick up any stray feces, and drop them in the litter box. This reinforces the message that they should relieve themselves in the litter box. Keep in mind that rabbits’ litter boxes aren’t always found. They sometimes urinate over the side of their box or leave a few droppings next to it. This is natural, but putting a plastic mat under their litter box or setting the litter box on a tile floor makes it easier to clean up these minor errors.
- Keep your cool and keep trying. Litter training is time-consuming, particularly if your rabbit has developed bad habits. The retraining process takes time. If you see them about to leave their litter box, pick them up and place them in it or corral them. Of course, saying anything is better than doing it.
- If your bunny insists on going to one corner of the room, it’s often easier to give in and put a litter box there. When rabbits pick another location over and over again, they are also trying to communicate with you that this is where they want to go.
- Your rabbit is marking his territory by pooping/spraying pee all over the place. To relieve territorial feelings, it’s a good idea to have your rabbit spayed or neutered.
- Rabbits will sometimes purposefully pee on your sofa or bed to demonstrate who is the house’s Top Bunny. You must instantly correct their misunderstanding.
The Proper Ways to Train a Rabbit for Using Litter Box
- You can begin litter training your rabbits whenever you like, but a rabbit can be litter trained at any age. Indeed, it has been proposed that older rabbits could be easier to train than babies because their brains are more evolved and learning comes more naturally to them. When it comes to success, neutering or not neutering has a greater effect than age. Non-neutered rabbits have a greater proclivity to label in the house, making house training more difficult.
- From the age of four months, you should neuter your rabbit. This will help in training and have a slew of other advantages.
- Start with one or more boxes in the rabbit’s running room and one or more boxes in the enclosure. If she urinates in an enclosure corner that does not hold the box, move the box to that corner before she gets it right. It’s perfectly normal for your rabbit to curl up in his litter box.
- Open her door and let her into her running room once she’s finished using the enclosure’s box. Keep an eye on her as she enters and exits the building by herself. Return her to her enclosure and litter box, or one of her room’s cabinets, gently.
- You don’t want the enclosure or litter box to appear to be a source of punishment. A handful of hay in the box warms it up. Praise her and give her a favorite treat the first time she uses the package.
- Her patterns will be on their way to developing until she uses the box in her room a couple of times. You will increase her space as she becomes more adept in her first home. This should not be rushed. If the space becomes too large, or if a second floor is added, make sure there are enough litter boxes for her.
The Proper Steps for Preparing Your Home for Bunnies
Plants for your home: Many are toxic to rabbits, so avoid having any or keep them out of reach if you must.
Chewing in General: Rabbits can chew on anything they can get their teeth into, and since they like wood, all furniture, door frames, skirting boards, and other wooden objects are at risk. Provide your rabbit with toys from the pet store, but expect harm.
Since rabbits have woolly feet with no grip, sliding floors can be a nightmare. As long as your rabbits aren’t carpeting chewers, you can sprinkle non-slip rugs in the house to keep them clean.
Rabbits will Get in Under Your Feet: They’ll frequently place themselves right where your foot is about to land. As a result, you’ll need to grow a sixth sense about where they are so they don’t trip you up or get trampled.
Rabbits need hiding places, so place strategically positioned cardboard boxes anywhere your rabbits are permitted to feel safe and comfortable.
The Great Runaway: Keep an eye out for the intrepid bunny looking for a day off. Rabbits enjoy jumping and leaping, and in their search for freedom, they can injure themselves.
How to Choose the Perfect Litter Box
- Ideally, your rabbit should be housed in a 16-square-foot room without a wire floor, so a plastic litter box intended for cats should suit well. This is a perfect choice for bunnies who struggle to climb into higher boxes due to arthritis or old age.
- Litter can fill at least half of the box, although some people choose to line the whole box with litter, which often works.
- When swallowed, other forms of litter, such as clumping litter, deodorant crystals, corncob litter, or oat- and alfalfa-based litters, are harmful or toxic and should be avoided. Stop inhaling softwood or clay litter.
- Keep your bunny’s hay in the other half of the litter box. You’ll need to replace this regularly because bunnies require a continuous supply of fresh hay.
- Use a natural, non-toxic cleaner like white vinegar or baking soda to clean your bunny’s litter box every other day at the very least. Nature’s Wonder, for example, makes cleaning items for animals. The litter and hay can be thrown out, and if you’re using organic litter, it can be turned into great fertilizer.
The Process of Learning Your Rabbit Tricks
For the safety and proper care of your rabbit, it is important to learn how to train your rabbit tricks. Create a tiny ball with one end of a small stick. Show it to the rabbit and reward them with a treat when their nose meets the ball.
Jumping to my feet
Start by putting a treat on the sofa where your rabbit can reach it by standing on their hind legs as the first step of how to train a rabbit to do tricks. Pat the cushions with the other hand, and give them the treat even if they don’t get up because they connect it with the sofa.
Keep the treat further back as your rabbit begins to react, so they must reach for it. They’ll finally learn that to get the treat, they’ll have to jump.
Come
Come is one of the most useful tricks, and it’s a good place to start in my opinion. It is not uncommon for your rabbit to openly run around and play with you.
Begin training in a small to medium-sized room with few distractions, such as a workout pen. A visual and verbal cue is required for this trick. After two tongue clicks, I prefer to tap my hand on the ground and say their name. Since your bunny isn’t already engaged with you, you’ll need to pick a distinct tone.
Target Training
Target training entails picking an object for your rabbit to learn to target. This is particularly useful in agility training because it helps you to effortlessly guide your rabbit through obstacles.
The Act of Spinning
Spinning is another simple luring method to teach a rabbit. The goal is to teach a rabbit to turn in a circle when she is told to. This is a fun trick to teach a rabbit and can be used in combination with other tricks. Have them turn in a circle three times and then send them a high five.
A clicker can speed up the learning process for your rabbit, but it isn’t needed. This trick is easy to learn if you have a favorite treat for your rabbit. Directly tempt your rabbit with a treat before they’ve completed a complete loop. Do this many times with the treat in your hand and the click to make them understand that they will earn the treat when they complete the loop.
Once your bunny is comfortable enough with you to sit next to you, start dropping treats closer and closer to him so he has to move closer to get them. Call his name as the treat is dropped and he starts to jump over and you can follow some guides about how to house train a rabbit. Do this at least twice a day for two to three weeks, but remember to keep your voice steady at all times rabbits have sensitive hearing and dislike noisy or unexpected noises. Commercially available rabbit treats should be avoided because they can cause weight gain and even tooth loss in your bunny.
