My bunny is very naughty. And I don't just mean that when she gets bored she ends up eating cords or ripping up carpet like the average bunny. She enjoys mischief and destruction. When I first got her, she just was a wee baby bunny, but even then she didn't care for any toys or cardboard or tunnels or anything I gave her. She wanted to explore and find things to destroy herself. And as she got older, I learned how to accommodate this better for the most part. I have a small decoy bookshelf filled with human items that she delights in destroying. Whenever I bring home a box of some sort, I make sure to tell her "no no this is my special box that you can't have. It would be very naughty to rip it up." And then I would put it somewhere she can get it easily enough without being too obvious. Things like that. Sanctioned mischief.
But she has caught on to my plan. And she does not appreciate that her destruction is not actually evil. So she has ramped up the naughty. In the last couple days, she has:
-Ripped up carpet
-Bitten the paint off the baseboards of the wall
-I accidentally left 2 of my phone charging cords on my bed (not unplugged in) while I used the bathroom and she quickly bit them into multiple pieces before I got back
-Ripped pages out of a library book that I am (was) reading
And whenever I push her away from the thing she's destroying, or tell her no, or remove the thing she's destroying from her grasp, she gets so happy and excited. She runs circles and does binkies in the air when she gets in trouble. Being naughty is her favorite thing.
But the thing is, she can tell the difference between when I'm actually upset and scolding her vs when I'm pretending to scold her sanctioned mischief. Her goal is the actual scolding. I don't get legitimately frustrated with her? She tries harder to destroy things.
She is around 8 months old. I've had her since she was very small, but she was a rescue picked up off the street and brought into a shelter so I'm strictly guessing on her age. And gender. I have no idea if she's male or female. I've had her for 6 months. She has not been neutered.
I've always assumed she was acting out to get attention, so I've been trying to give her more positive attention in the last few weeks so that she'll stop seeking out negative attention. I took 4 days off of work to spend that time with her, and she enjoyed the attention, but she also got more naughty because I was home to see her wreak mischief. When I'm at work, she doesn't destroy things. At all. She just plays with her toys, eats, and sleeps like your average bunny. She waits until I get home so that I can watch her destroy things and she can get in trouble for it.
I am a Registered Behavior Technician, and a Nurse. But nothing that I have learned in my education or career experience is working for this mischevious bunny who delights in evil.
My hellion's name is Dewdrop. I love her very much.
Can anybody give advice?
by FreshBread333