If you saw a parent treating their child in a harmful way, how would you react if you’re told that ”the parent knows their child best”?
Would you accept that?
I hope not. But when it comes to rabbits, I see this a lot. Knowledgable people are bringing attention to harmful behaviour, but being met with ”they know their rabbit the best”.
Whether it’s about diet, housing, trancing etc.
And of course, harnesses.
We can all agree on the fact that rabbits are prey animals, unlike cats or dogs who are predators.
And we can all agree that prey animals are wired to be scared, so they can hide to protect themselves in the best possible way (since their natural instinct is never to attack and know that they wouldn’t win a fight).
🤍Most of us know that rabbits can get uneasy in new surroundings and the importance of having places to hide (that each have at least two entry ways to escape).
🤍Most of us even know that rabbits can even get a heart attack and die from being scared. Or at the very least, stop eating, which can lead to death.
🤍Most of us know that rabbits have very fragile bones, unlike cats and dogs.
🤍Most of us know that rabbits rarely move in a straight line (again, because they’re prey animals, they need to move irratically to escape predators).
🤍Most of us know that rabbits hide pain or terror very well, and often when we notice something’s off, it’s already gone very far.
With all of this, how do you think rabbits feel about being put in a harness?
How do you think they feel about having something around their neck?
How do you think they feel about being dropped down in an unfamiliar environment, being restrained with no place to hide?
How do you think they’ll react when they feel threatened?
How do you think you’d be able to keep up with them when they try to eacape, and not pulling the leash?
How do you think you’d feel if you were the reason your rabbit broke their neck, because they got scared?
That the reason they got severely hurt, or worse, is because you wanted to put them in a scary environment, with a noose around them that made them uncomfortable, because YOU wanted to go out with them?
I couldn’t live with myself. Could you?
(The photo is from when we got Alfred and were told that we ”should start early to get him used to the harness”, but that it was fine to use and that he’d be uncomfortable in the beginning, but then accept it.
Does that sound like something we should put rabbits through?
We soon realized that we did not want to be part of our family member’s suffering, because it was clear from the first try that he got very stressed by having this around him. After this, we read up on all the dangers of dressing up rabbits or using harnesses.)
Kaninliv 