[Sara Davenport]

Gunner (16 months) will be coming to live with us one week from today! I've already asked you all about introducing him to my cats. Any suggestions about my rabbit?

The rabbit lives in a cage in it's own room. I can keep the door shut so that Gunner can not get to the cage. The rabbit (Sprinkle) is litter trained, so every day we give her time to run around inside the house. I'm thinking that I will do this when Gunner is outside and basically just keep the two of them apart.

Does anyone have a rabbit and doodle that are friends?

Thanks.

Sara

 

[blacke]

We tried to get Henry and Neville, our Mini Rex, to be friends, but it was not going to work. Henry just wanted to play but puppy play is not fun for little bunnies! :? Neville's cage was in our living room and Henry loved to lay in front of it and bark. We decided it would be best for everyone if Neville went to live with my brother. Now that we have Deacon also, we know it was the right thing to do. We miss him, but Neville just loves living at his new home where he gets tons of time to run around and explore without being chased, licked, or barked at.

 

[KingstonTodd]

Hershey was great with our mini Rex's but they were terrified of her. she wanted to play, and thankfully she was good wih leave it. They were constantly in fear of being dinner. We ended up rehoming our Rex's to a little girl in our old neighbourhood.

 

[Sara Davenport]

Yikes! I don't think rehoming is a good option for us. I may have to just stay with keeping Sprinkle and Gunner separated. Just another complication of having multiple animals!

 

[Guest]

My cat segregates herself from the dog. If you keep the door closed I think it would be fine. Maybe have the bunny in his cage and let the dog see it. You never know they may like each other!

 

[Sara Davenport]

I forgot to say that all three of my cats (whom we had before the bunny) bow down to the bunny. Sprinkle (the bunny), goes where she wants and does what she wants. One of my cats is even scared of Sprinke and jumps up onto the furniture whenever Sprinkle is out of her cage. This really surprised us as we has assumed that the cats would be agressive towards Sprinke. as cats are naturally predators.

I suppose it will depend upon whether Sprinkle is scared of Gunner. If so, I will keep them separated out of fairness to Sprinkle. If she is not scared then they could be in the same room together if I have Gunner on a leash.

 

[ChasP505]

Not a Doodle, but my Lab was the best of friends with my step-daughter's lop-eared bunny. The bunny had a soccer ball which he "treated as his girlfriend", doing what male bunny's do best. He would nudge the ball over to the Lab and the dog would hold the ball steady while the bunny did his thing. I have pictures, but in the name of good taste, I won't post them here. :wink:

 

[mtd885]

Not a Doodle, but my Lab was the best of friends with my step-daughter's lop-eared bunny. The bunny had a soccer ball which he "treated as his girlfriend", doing what male bunny's do best. He would nudge the ball over to the Lab and the dog would hold the ball steady while the bunny did his thing. I have pictures, but in the name of good taste, I won't post them here. :wink:

CHICKEN :lol: I'm reminded of Joan Rivers response to some celebrity showing her pictures of her new baby, she said, "I'd rather see pictures of the CONCEPTION, these are boring."
I'd introduce the two and take it from there. You never know about these things.

 

[FloridaMama]

FOOD CHAIN

:lol:

We have a food chain here. We have a yorkie that would love to eat our parrot and ferret . Our greyhound in her elder years doesnt mind anything anymore, our poodle is fine however adding Lincoln to the mix changes things a little. We could leave our yorkie in the back when our ferret has freetime around the house however Lincoln is afraid to be left out as he lived outside

Soooo what i have done ( but still feel bad for Willy the ferret ) is my boys go in the playroom with door locked with willy. when they are done my 4.5yr old calls for me that they are about to come out. He unlocks the door when i get to the door and hands me Willy. Then when boys are out of room Willy goes back in the kids playroom to have free roam. I think tomorrow i may crate Lincoln a little bit while Willy is free roaming the whole house.

He seemed interested in him when he was in his cage but then when my yorkie started barking at him he then joined in :? i have put them nose to nose as i dont think he would eat him however i think he could pounce on him. I was really hoping they could get along.. who knows maybe a few years. But for now we will do the one is closed off while one is out. Its easy to have our parrot out cause he is in a room with french doors which we just close. i cant do the same with our ferret even though he is in the same room cause it also has the backdoor to the backyard and he could run out if boys are in and out.

I think if all can be VERY conscious it can work even if they always have to be seperate

 

[BSCK]

We have a mini-Rex who lives on our screened porch. He is seldom caged, and the dogs have to go through the porch to get outside. This was never a problem with our sedate 12-year-old dog - she would just give him a little sniff hello and then move on - but when we got a rambunctious 1-year-old doodle, it was another story! So from day one with Daisy, we had to teach her that she was not allowed to approach or chase the rabbit. Fortunately, once she "got it" she's been very reliable, and we can put the dogs out with no trouble.

What I did was to take Daisy out on her leash at first, so that she was always completely under my control while we walked through the "rabbit zone". I also kept a squirt bottle of water handy, and if she rushed at the rabbit, I gave her a squirt and a firm "NO." Gradually, we introduced the two inside, with my kids holding Roger (rabbit) and me holding Daisy - again on the leash. At first we just let them sniff one another a little, but eventually we put Daisy in a submissive posture and brought Roger close and let him "claim" the dog, a la Cesar Millan. I have no idea if this really worked or if the novelty of the rabbit just wore off for Daisy, but she no longer gets excited when she sees Roger and I have no fear of her chasing him on her way outside. That said, I would never leave them alone in a room together unless I was there to supervise. She is still young and playful, and though I don't think she'd chase Roger with the intent of killing him, I think that could very well be the result if they were left alone together. The bottom line is that he's 4 pounds and she's 55!

I think in your situation, what I'd do is introduce the animals and then continue to let the rabbit have his time of free-roaming, but make sure that Gunner is on his leash and fully under your control at those times. Or, you could put him behind a gate, if that's effective for him, or in a crate - someplace where he can see the rabbit but can't approach him without your permission. Familiarity will probably eventually breed a certain amount of boredom, but in the meantime, you need to be right there and prepared to correct Gunner in whatever way you're comfortable with if he gets overly excited about the rabbit. Hopefully, they'll eventually reach the point where they can be in a room together .

Good luck to you!

S.