House Bunny Fanatics: I can't deal with this one floppy ear

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Pet Island > House Bunny Fanatics: I can't deal with this one floppy ear

Cythereal: Nov 8, 2009; I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Yossarian-22 posted:

We brought home the terrier and it was impossible to manage, so we took it back. We tried really hard to limit its access to the enclosure but he was just too goddamn indefatigable in all things.

Now we have an adorable, laid back, and smart af 1 year old poodle. We've tried introducing her to both of the buns but she still has issues with them.

Does anyone know the general template for introducing doggos to rabbits? You've all been really helpful so far and even influenced my decision to take the terrier back

Take the puppy back if you care about your rabbits.

Going by your wording, you actually brought the terrier home. I'm sure your existing pets, whose entire ecological niche is "get eaten" and have brains evolved to that end, just love you bringing home their natural predators.

# ¿ Aug 6, 2018 03:36

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# ¿ May 9, 2024 17:16

Cythereal: Nov 8, 2009; I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Yossarian-22 posted:

Haha, go gently caress yourself because you literally know nothing and yet you decided to have an epic meltdown. I have allergy sensitivities. It was my gf who really wanted a dog and she was bent on getting a cute looking terrier from craigslist, a three year old one at that (not a puppy), who was being fostered.

You went disastrously wrong here. If the dog was actually being fostered, it wouldn't be on craigslist, it would be through the shelter and animals being fostered are specifically not ready for adoption - that's why they're being fostered for whatever reason until they're ready for adoption from the shelter.

You and your girlfriend are not doing your research about dogs, at all, and your rabbits are paying the price.

# ¿ Aug 7, 2018 00:06

Cythereal: Nov 8, 2009; I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Yossarian-22 posted:

I'm going to step back here, because it's clear that you all passed a judgement on me as soon as I ended up taking a rental terrier home for one day. If I had simply adopted the poodle and asked for tips without that having happened, I'd bet we'd be having a more constructive dialog right now. But alas, admittedly I made a stupid decision with that one day rental, and paid essentially no price for it aside from some poop on the rug, which I guess you can all take solace in for being bad karma or whatever.

My googling has yielded mixed results as to whether or not bunnies and dogs can coexist peacefully. If any of you have any sources aside to discourage me from owning both aside from your own firm no's then I'll happily look at them.

I want to just point out that there was only one message that had anything to say about other kinds of dogs and it was much more equivocal than any of your recent ad hominems have been: "If your house/garden is big enough rather look at a bigger cuddly dog like a Labrador that doesn't have several hundred years of rabbit-killing bred into it."

The bad advice is coming from inside the thread!

If you had just adopted the poodle and asked for tips, this thread would be calling you a dumb gently caress and telling you to take the poodle back.

You're the kind of poster PI loves to tear apart, someone who comes in with a bad idea that's probably going to end in stressed out, insane, or just plain dead animals and is looking for validation, then acts offended and self-righteous when people who know much more about these animals than you do tell you yours is a very bad idea.

Just because the advice you got wasn't the advice you wanted doesn't make that advice wrong, but you and your girlfriend made your choices clear and your bunnies are in for a bad time that will probably be rather short.

You're a repeat of this dude. He completely ignored the thread's screaming, got the Maremma puppy, and a couple of months later surrendered the puppy to a rescue because it attacked his toddler - exactly what many posters in the thread warned him might happen.

Cythereal fucked around with this message at 04:50 on Aug 7, 2018

# ¿ Aug 7, 2018 03:57

Cythereal: Nov 8, 2009; I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Yossarian-22 posted:

I'm also led to believe that mini-poodles have hardly very much if at all.

You've been lead to believe what you want to believe, and ignoring everyone in both this thread and the puppy thread that tell you things you don't want to hear. Now you're just being a shithead on top of ignorant.

# ¿ Aug 7, 2018 20:12

Cythereal: Nov 8, 2009; I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Yossarian-22 posted:

Like, hey, more info on mini-poodles. Or more info on different case studies of buns and dogs living together that are relatively not so prey-driven. Or more info on anything pertinent, really. I'm trying here. Otherwise I would have left this thread at the first sign of trouble

Poodles are hunting dogs. Every dog is prey-driven to some extent, and rabbits are prey species with their own set of instincts.

Yes, rabbits and dogs sometimes can be kept together peacefully, but that is rare and even the most seemingly peaceful relationship can end with a dead rabbit in a single second of the dog changing its peanut brain.

You should not count on that, and if you care about your rabbits you should not be willingly bringing in dogs. You already brought in a loving terrier, one of the most infamously aggressive dog breeds.

# ¿ Aug 7, 2018 20:42

Cythereal: Nov 8, 2009; I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Yossarian-22 posted:

- Signs that the bunnies aren't having a good time when introduced to the dog, so that I can convince my girlfriend to rehome them or the mini-poodle

They are in a house with a dog. They are not having a good time.

quote:

- Signs that the mini-poodle is good/bad around the bunnies, so that I can train her (if possible, and most of you clearly don't think so) or rehome it or the poodle

It's a dog. Whether it seems to be okay around the buns is irrelevant, it's terrifying the buns by its existence and all it takes is one second of the dog not being okay to kill them.

quote:

- Ideas of training regimes for dogs to cope with small animals

It's a dog. Whether it seems to be okay around the buns is irrelevant, it's terrifying the buns by its existence and all it takes is one second of the dog not being okay to kill them.

quote:

- Evidence that mini-poodles have "high prey drives," which I haven't seen evidence of so far

It's a dog.

You are not going to get anyone in this thread or the puppy thread telling you what you want. Bringing a dog into a home with rabbits is going to freak the rabbits the gently caress out, period. The dog may or may not kill them, it's impossible to tell and it can change its mind on a split second.

Cythereal fucked around with this message at 21:36 on Aug 7, 2018

# ¿ Aug 7, 2018 21:34

Cythereal: Nov 8, 2009; I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

gamingCaffeinator posted:

And was it the same response as this thread? Then you're the problem.

Here's what the other thread had to say:

Phuzun posted:

The rabbits will die of heart attacks from the constant presence of a predator. That's if the enclosure keeps the dog out.

MockingQuantum posted:

This. Out of curiosity I asked my veterinarian mother-in-law and she said that they'd likely die from stress with enough exposure to the dog, and that in her experience most dogs, regardless of breed, will do their best to kill (or "play with") the rabbits anyway.

Apologies if there are actual vets in the thread who have already said basically that, I only just started lurking the thread.

queserasera posted:

The OP already asked these questions in the rabbit thread and got pretty much the same answers. I think he's just shopping for the answer he wants.

Wait a couple years for the rabbits to die of natural causes and then get a dog.

rabbitmonger posted:

I had a dog and rabbits and they got along well enough for several years (dog didn't gently caress with them, buns eventually died of old age) BUT it was a very specific "this particular dog and these particular rabbits are not making each other miserable" situation. I would not do it again and I don't recommend other people do it either. You're rolling the dice on the wellbeing of the rabbits and that's naive at best, cruel at worst.

# ¿ Aug 7, 2018 21:46

Cythereal: Nov 8, 2009; I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Yossarian-22 posted:

Ironically, I posted the same article earlier in the thread to defend myself and somebody criticized me for posting it, because of its poor sentence structure and mixed messaging. There are whole other parts of that article that go into depth on how a dog/rabbit relationship could work successfully.

Here are some responses to when I was dumb enough to bring home a terrier: "I had a dog and rabbits and they got along well enough for several years (dog didn't gently caress with them, buns eventually died of old age) BUT it was a very specific "this particular dog and these particular rabbits are not making each other miserable" situation. I would not do it again and I don't recommend other people do it either. You're rolling the dice on the wellbeing of the rabbits and that's naive at best, cruel at worst."

"If the dog (as a puppy) grows up with the buns they might be ok, but introducing a grown dog to rabbits is asking for trouble. We had a bird when we got our puppy and he was fine with it because he knew it was off limits, but when we got a second dog who was 6 months+ we ended up sending the bird to live with my mom (who spoils him rotten) because dog #2 was going to eat him the second she got a chance. What I�m saying is, don�t introduce grown rear end dogs to your rabbits because carnage will ensue."

The second response was why having a 1 year old poodle is complicated for me, because he's something between a puppy and an adult dog. I'm not sure if it's possible to socialize him given the circumstances, but I'm trying.

The following was in response to me getting the poodle, but said nothing about poodles specifically. I looked up the prey drive of German Shepards and they seemed to be very high on the spectrum.

"You didn't get it the last time people told you, so I'll just reiterate it here: if you want the bunnies to live their natural lives, don't let the dog near them. Any dog will have some amount of predatory instinct, even if they're generally well behaved around typical "prey" animals. My wife had two german shepherds growing up who had been around the farm's goats since they were puppies. They never had any issues for years, then one day when they were about five or six years old, something snapped in them and they killed four of the goats. Nobody ever figured out why, and the dogs obviously had no idea they ever did anything wrong. It's not the sort of thing you can control, or even guard against. "

So all things considered, I'm trying very hard to keep the dog and the buns separate, and will definitely rehome one or the other if it proves to be impossible.

The rabbits will be able to smell your dog and it will terrify them.

Give up and go make your rabbits' lives a living hell until the dog eats them or they die from stress, just stop pretending you're choosing anything else.

# ¿ Aug 7, 2018 21:50

Cythereal: Nov 8, 2009; I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

Yossarian-22 posted:

Also these are my girlfriend's rabbits, not mine. I just moved in with her. I'm trying to learn more about rabbits here and this is a joint situation. Sometimes my girlfriend, for example, looks for incredibly obvious telltale signs like "thumping" and assumes that if they're not doing that, they're fine. But if they're in fact stoic creatures, then she should know about that, because then we absolutely should do something about that.

The rabbits are never going to be comfortable or happy if there is a dog in the house. Period. You and your girlfriend decide not to have a dog, or accept that the dog is going to be at the expensive of your rabbits.

# ¿ Aug 7, 2018 22:04

Cythereal: Nov 8, 2009; I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

gamingCaffeinator posted:

Electric Bugaloo and Cythereal are not afraid to read you to filth, and I love that about them (and PI in general).

I don't even own buns, I just lurk in this thread and others for the cute photos. :shobon:

That guy's attitude just ticked me off that much and I did a little research plus listening to what everyone in this and the puppy thread had to say.

Have a couple of cute non-pet bun photos from the wildlife photography thread.

Fart Amplifier posted:

DSC_6152.jpg by Steven Sarginson, on Flickr

DSC_6212.jpg by Steven Sarginson, on Flickr

# ¿ Aug 8, 2018 15:55

Cythereal: Nov 8, 2009; I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

FactsAreUseless posted:

Rabbits are fantastic pets for working people or students with no kids or other pets. You can leave them alone for long chunks of time to go to work or school without distressing them, they litter train easily, and they don't need constant supervision. But you have to accept a pet that isn't cuddly, that wants affection on its own terms, and can be a trouble maker.

They're not bad beginner pets either. The hardest part of having rabbits is that it's only been in the last decade or so you could reliably find good rabbit information. They're easier to care for than dogs, maybe even than cats, but with a cat or a dog you can find help everywhere all the time. Finding a vet is also tricky - you have to get your rabbit spayed/neutered, and not every vet is prepared to put a rabbit under anesthesia. You might have to pay more for specialized vet care.

Yeah, I personally just prefer cats.

On that note, cats and rabbits apparently can - under specific circumstances not recommended for everyone to try - get along okay.

https://i.imgur.com/Yy30pQn.mp4

Edit: didn't realize, but of course it's a maine coon in both...

# ¿ Aug 8, 2018 18:44

Cythereal: Nov 8, 2009; I love the potoo,
and the potoo loves you.

chernobyl kinsman posted:

does anyone have a link to the post where the maremma sheepdog woman talks about giving up the dog? never saw the sequel to that. was the kid okay?

It's in the tail end of that thread. One of the other goons was facebook friends with her, and apparently the maremma attacked the autistic kid and sent the dog to a breed rescue. The kid was fine.

# ¿ Aug 13, 2018 02:31