And please remember, these are NOT tasty snacks…
Bathmats, bicycle tires, bills, bits of wire, books, carpet bindings, electrical cords, fine leather handbags, fringes, items of drying laundry, leather jackets, legal, documents, pants cuffs, paychecks, phone cords, plaster corners, plastic bags, printer cables, rubber tub stoppers, rugs, shoes, slipcovers, socks (being worn or not), towels, wastebaskets, waste in wastebaskets, welcome mats.

A. — Annoying/Embarrassing Habitbits —-

  1. After my human has been on the floor petting me for forty-five minutes, I will refrain from nudging her ankle and grunting determinedly at her in order to elicit MORE petting when she gets up to make her dinner.
  2. As much as I love my brother, I do not need to show it to the world. Especially while on display at an Easter egg hunt so that Mommy has to come up with some sort of explanation for the little humans.
  3. Being chased with a net is not a game. I will not dance like crazy, shake my head and wiggle my ears in a fit of silliness while Mom is trying to catch me. (Rascal was an abandoned bunny who took me weeks to catch, as he was loose in my neighborhood park).
  4. I do not need to pounce on everything I see.
  5. I will accept the traditional meaning of ‘no!’ and quit trying to continually redefine it.
  6. I will not attempt to escape my cage by climbing through the feeder.
  7. I will not disappear by fading into the shadows and then laugh at the humans when they can’t find me (Pyewackit, the stealthy black bunny).
  8. I will not growl at my parents when they try to give me my medicine.
  9. I will not hide in the closet so Dad can’t see me, then scare him to death when he sticks his hand in to feel around, and feels…me!
  10. I will not look really cute and snuggle into people’s laps and then pee.
  11. I will not pout and throw a fit every time the slaves leave town.
  12. I will not push open the closet door and camp out in the dirty laundry.
  13. I will not rush at Mommy growling and batting with my paws when she tries to pick up my food dish. She is trying to fill it not STEAL it.
  14. I will not scare people who ring the doorbell by sitting in the parlor window, pretending I’m not real, and then standing up and grooming myself.
  15. I will not scratch at the bedroom door to be let in when I *know* they’re in there!
  16. I will not sit on Mom’s sister’s head when she is sleeping on the sofa bed, even if it is MY turf.
  17. I will not yodel after successfully breeding. It is bragging, and the does don’t like it. (I had a French Lop who literally sang, up and down the scale, after he mated. Evidently it was genetic, since his son later did the same thing.)
  18. I will stop conspiring to get into places with my boyfriend. I will stop engineering it so that I knock down the barrier, and he provides the mobile distraction while I devour all the oats.
  19. If my human fails to release me from my cage immediately when she wakes up in the morning, I will not go temporarily insane and rip fur out of my neck for the next two hours.
  20. If my human gives me extra petting time one day, I will not sulk if I don’t get the same attention the next day.
  21. My girlfriend is for mounting, not Mommy’s foot.
  22. The humans do not appreciate having their hot water turned off.
  23. There are no lost children, rabbits, adults or even planes that need help finding their way through the hall, so there is no need for me to keep “marking the trail”.
  24. We will not zoom over to low, flat containers of wine, jam our heads in, and start drinking alcoholic beverages without Mom’s permission.
brown and tan dwarf lop rabbit on the grass
Image Credit: Snoopy0107, Shutterstock

B. — Bodily Functions —

  1. Getting my claws trimmed does not hurt and helps me hop better. My human should not need to sneak up on me to accomplish this, one toe at a time.
  2. I don’t need to wait until I’m out of my cage to go to the bathroom.
  3. I will never spray on Dad again.
  4. I will not attack and spray the stuffed animals.
  5. I will not groom myself so strenously while I am shedding that my stomach fills with hairballs, then grind my teeth and stop eating, causing three days of hospitalization and $500 in vet bills.
  6. I will not get pitiful hiccups to demonstrate how neglected I am, and stop them immediately when I get some attention.
  7. I will not intentionally pee on people I don’t like.
  8. I will not pee on any floppy disks inadvertently left on the floor.
  9. I will not pee on my human’s bed because she won’t pay attention to me.
  10. I will not pee on the floor immediately after it has been cleaned.
  11. I will not poop and pee in front of the other rabbits’ cages.
  12. I will not poop on Dad’s side of the bed and then pull the sheets up to cover it.
  13. I will not render opinions of The Economist or The Nation by pooping on them.
  14. I will not scratch earwax deep out of my ear and then lick it off my toes.
  15. I will not spray my human simply because she reached into my cage.
  16. I will not try to impress people with my aim by “marking” Mom from 10 feet away, through another set of rabbit cages. (True story!)
  17. I will stop playing “Guess how many turds I can pile all in one spot?” when I am out on the rug.
  18. Mommy and Daddy do not find bunny farts sexy, especially during hot summer days.
broken castor mini rex doe
Image Credit: Kassia Marie Ott, Shutterstock

C. — Destroying —

  1. Eating the keyboard cable is not the proper way to turn off the computer, even if the screensaver annoys me.
  2. I will ask Mommy to show me what carpet tacks look like, instead of digging up the carpet to find out myself.
  3. I will not artistically scallop the edges of borrowed books.
  4. I will not bite the baseboards.
  5. I will not chew holes in the floor pillows.
  6. I will not chew on the furniture. There is enough fiber in my diet already.
  7. I will not chew on the wires of my cage, since that will mess up my teeth.
  8. I will not chew through Mommy’s watch band if she stops petting me and falls asleep.
  9. I will not chew through the TV cord; it frizzes my fur, and makes it smoke!
  10. I will not chew through the bunny gate. No matter how badly I want into the other room.
  11. I will not chomp the phone cord when Dad is talking on it instead of petting me.
  12. I will not chomp the refrigerator cord, subsequently scaring Mom and Dad to death and causing two hours of repair work.
  13. I will not eat the bill from the vet for my neutering.
  14. I will not eat Dad’s new rugby boots, getting Mom in a lot of hot water.
  15. I will not fringe all those boring hemmed jeans.
  16. I will not get jealous over the amount of time Mommy spends doing research, and will not display my “appreciation” of her work by shredding her only copy.
  17. I will not gnaw on Daddy’s genuine birds-eye maple desk that his father made for him 40 years ago.
  18. I will not gnaw on my bedding when the humans are asleep.
  19. I will not gnaw the plastic off of the slave’s eyeglasses.
  20. I will not intentionally bite through the refrigerator power cord to make my human give me all the veggies before they go bad.
  21. I will not nibble chunks off the hem of my human’s mother’s favorite silk dress when she fails to pay attention to me for two minutes.
  22. I will not nibble large holes in the shower curtain to punish my human whenever she is away overnight and forgets to hike it up. Plastic is not good for my digestion.
  23. I will not push open the bedroom door and eat the wallpaper when Dad’s asleep.
  24. I will not remove the titles from the spines of all of Daddy’s paperback science fiction.
  25. I will not remove the titles from the spines of all of Mommy’s LPs.
  26. I will not shred the water heater blanket, rendering it useless, getting Mom in a lot of hot water…oops, getting Mom in big trouble.
  27. I will not sneak past the bunny-gate, jump into my human’s bed, chew up her sheets, build a nest there, and line it with my own spare fur.
  28. I will not try to make a nest on Mom’s stomach and bite two holes in Dad’s favorite shirt that Mom is not supposed to be wearing! (It was actually kinda funny – I mended the bite holes and put the shirt in his closet. After the next time he wore the shirt I asked him if he had noticed anything wrong or different about it. When he said he hadn’t seen anything wrong with it I fessed up. (Cause if I had told him *before* he would have noticed *every* blemish – even those Pixie hadn’t made!) He isn’t on PetBunny, but he is a Very Sensitive Bunny Guy! Thank goodness!
  29. It is not good to chew the toilet paper off a new roll, just to get to the cardboard tube. Mommy provides me with plenty of cardboard tubes to play with.
  30. It is ungrateful of me to steal things to destroy when I have many toys of my own.
  31. Just because I want out doesn’t mean I have to knock my cage completely over and kick the door with my back feet until it breaks off.
  32. Just because the mouse cord is hanging down doesn’t mean I can eat it.
  33. Mommy’s cutting board is not a toy that I can shred or throw around.
  34. Teeth marks are not attractive decorations on cabinet doors.
  35. The buttons on the remote control are not meant to be eaten.
  36. The carpet does not exist purely for my grazing pleasure.
  37. The catnip mouse is for the cats to play with. It is not for me to chew on, take the tail off of, dump in my water bowl, and eventually disembowel.
  38. The leather couch is not a food item.
  39. The new carpet is not my new snack.
  40. When Mommy has finally chosing the perfect outfit, I will not chew a hole in it as she says “goodbye” to me.
French lop rabbit with a chewing toy
Image Credit: Mariska van Dasselaar, Shutterstock

D. — Food/Water —

  1. A threesome carrot eating session, with me and the other rabbits, is frustrating. I promise not to try it again. I will eat my own piece.
  2. Foam blankets are not one of the four food groups.
  3. Green stuff is a food.
  4. I am a herbivore and therefore do not need to have a bite of Daddy’s sandwich.
  5. I should have come with a warning label: “I will eat everything I see except food that is good for me.”
  6. I will eat food that is there, instead of trying to rip it out of my boyfriend’s mouth.
  7. I will eat the broccoli with my ground up medication smeared on it, instead of turning it upside down and rubbing the medicine off on the carpet.
  8. I will eat the green stuff instead of only lunging for the carrots.
  9. I will not beg to try everything that the humans eat.
  10. I will not drink beer until I am twenty-one.
  11. I will not eat all of the indoor plants. I have plenty of fresh veggies and other food to eat.
  12. I will not eat my human’s guests’ shoelaces.
  13. I will not get fed significantly faster if I knock the food-scoop out of my human’s hands before she empties it into my bowl.
  14. I will not hide under the Christmas tree, zoom out to a candy dish, rip the aluminum foil aside, grab a *big* piece of fudge, and zoom back under the Christmas tree, where Dad had to crawl in and take the fudge away from me. I will not growl at him when he takes the fudge away, either!
  15. I will not leave “presents” in my own food as an excuse for not eating it.
  16. I will not lick the carpet. It gives me hairballs.
  17. I will not make off with Mom’s sushi. (Wow! What was that funny green stuff?
  18. I will not run with my food dish in my mouth, making noise against the cage walls, while my Mommy is having company, to make them remark “Oh how cute … poor little guy … doesn’t she ever feed him?” even when I HAVE just been fed.
  19. I will not sit right next to my litter box and urinate on the floor, just to make a point!
  20. I will not starve to death if my human fails to share her tortilla chips with me.
  21. I will not suffer withdrawal pains if I don’t receive my papaya tablet promptly.
  22. I will not thump angrily after “only” 4 mini-carrots.
  23. It is not necessary to shove all the commercial food pellets out of my bowl and onto the floor in order to reach the dried vegetable bits I like. I get plenty of fresh vegetables.
  24. Molding is not a food.
  25. My life will not be over if the humans run out of applesauce and so give me broccoli for my midnight snack instead.
  26. My Mommy will give me treats as she sees fit. I need not snack on potpourri and candles when she is not looking. After all, I am suppose to be a 5 lb minilop, instead, I am a 13.5 lb hunk of attitude. Maybe I don’t need a snack today anyways!
  27. Not everything that I see is food. Namely the human hand that feeds me.
  28. Pelletized litter is there for my business, not for my snack time.
  29. Pringles are not for bunnies.
  30. Shoes are not a good source of fiber.
  31. The stuff at the bottom of the food dish is not different from than that at the top.
  32. Tipping my food dish over is not a requirement if I want to eat I do not have to trap the food. It is all ready dead.
  33. Urine is not a food supplement.
  34. Veggies are not better if I roll them in my litter.
  35. Veggies do not taste better when spread out over the kitchen floor.
  36. We will not throw our toys down the ramp in our two-story cage, just for the thrill of the noise it makes! (It scares the 70 lb. dog!)
  37. Yogurt drops are treats for when I obey. Not when I claw and bite at the human.
rabbit eating hay
Image Credit: Farhad Ibrahimzade, Shutterstock

E. — Hampering —

  1. I do not need to sit on the book that someone is reading to remind them that I’m here.
  2. I will go directly to my cage when it’s bedtime, and not initiate a game of “keep away from the human.”
  3. I will not chew off any bandages which may be on me. The vet put them there for a reason.
  4. I will not grab sections of newspaper and hop away with them while someone else is actually reading them.
  5. I will not hide Mom’s squirt gun underneath the TV so she can’t find it when I’m shredding the carpeting.
  6. I will not jump into the tub when my Mommy is trying to run a bath.
  7. I will not pull out any stitches I may have. That is counter-productive.
  8. I will not zoom up to Mom’s feet as she walks down the hallway, so that she either usually kicks me or almost steps on me!
  9. If I want to be petted I will sit still and not try to play tag.
  10. When my human opens the front door on her way out to work, that is not a good time to sneak outside.

F. — Human-Related —

  1. Despite what I may think, humans do need their eyebrows.
  2. Fingers and toes are not tasty snacks.
  3. Humans are not here to be my snack.
  4. I am not a hairstylist or a beard-trimmer.
  5. I can show affection others ways beside biting and clawing.
  6. I do not need to take Mommy’s glasses off. She can manage that task on her own.
  7. I must remember that I have enormous feet with enormous claws, and these can do serious damage to flesh.
  8. I will not bite Dad when he gets back to petting me after petting the other buns.
  9. I will not bite Daddy on the thigh just because he’s talking to another woman on the phone. (like Mommy).
  10. I will not bite my human if she does not feed me immediately when she wakes up.
  11. I will not burrow into my human when she is wearing a nice sweater.
  12. I will not grunt and run around Dad’s feet because he cannot be my mate.
  13. I will not grunt, growl and attack Dad when he moves his legs and then pretend like nothing happened and ask for petting.
  14. I will not helicopter my ears so vigorously that Mommy gets a tummy-ache from laughing when she is supposed to be heading for work in the morning.
  15. I will not jump onto Mom’s stomach to wake her up when she’s taking a nap on the couch.
  16. I will not lunge at visiting 6-year-olds.
  17. I will remember that I hate being on humans’ laps before I jump up on them to steal food.
  18. I will stop looking so cute, only to remind Mommy that I am not cuddly by giving her a sharp nip in the finger.
  19. If Dad wants to shorten his hair, he’ll get it done professionally.
  20. If I would sit on my human’s lap calmly and not jump off in a panic, gouging my untrimmed claws into her legs, I would get petted more.
  21. It is okay for my human to do things other than pet me.
  22. Just because my human’s legs are smooth most of the time, it doesn’t mean it’s a good idea to nibble off hairs when they are not.
  23. My human has the right to nap. While she does so, I will refrain from picking up and dropping the plank of one-by-six to which my food bowls are nailed, hooking my claws into and rattling the bunny-gate, and digging to China through the floor of my litterbox.
  24. When Mom says she loves me, I will not bite her. Love is a good thing.
student petting a rabbit inside the classroom
Image Credit: XiXinXing, Shutterstock

G. — Mess-Making —

  1. I can hide under the table if I don’t want to seen. I do not need to roll in the fireplace and get ashes all over my beautiful white fur.
  2. I don’t always have to help Mom clean my cage. It is really unnecessary for me to spread the clean shavings across the room.
  3. I don’t need to knock over anything bigger than me or because it is in my way.
  4. I will not “mark my territory” on the carpet. There are no other bunnies here to smell it, and my human does not appreciate the perfume.
  5. I will not peel each and every sticky note off the pad.
  6. I will not pull all of the facial tissues out of the box.
  7. I will not pull banana peels out of the garbage.
  8. I will stop making paste at the bottom of my food bowl by getting my face wet from the water bowl, then attempting to eat the dust at the bottom of the bowl.
  9. Kicking things out of my litterbox defeats its purpose.
  10. My litterbox is not a fun place to play.
  11. Pins are for sewing use, they are not toys that I can pull out one by one and throw onto the floor.
  12. Shredded cardboard is not a desirable decorating element.
  13. Sorting the recyclables is not my job.
  14. We will not dig the cinders out from underneath the wood stove, causing a cloud of ash to erupt in the living room. Too bad we missed the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, it would have been really cool, but it was before me.

H. — Miscellaneous —

  1. Anything a foot and below isn’t mine just because I chinned it.
  2. Biting does not get me what I want, unless I want to have a time-out.
  3. I am not the boss.
  4. I really don’t belong on top of the chest of drawers.
  5. Negative attention *is not* better than no attention at all.
  6. Whatever is yours is *not* mine too.
two lovely rabbits
Image Credit: UNIKYLUCKK, Shutterstock

I. — Misuse/Misappropriation of Items —

  1. I will not jump up on the chair to steal bananas from Dad’s breakfast cereal.
  2. I will not jump up on the chair, then to the table, to steal M&M’s.
  3. I will not remove shoelaces from any pair of shoes left unattended.
  4. I will not steal my human brother’s Legos from his room. (My little dwarf Hottot, Rosie, does this sometimes. If my son is missing a certain piece, it’s almost guaranteed to be found by somebunny’s cage.)
  5. The broom is not my lambada partner.
  6. When the floor has been waxed, it doesn’t need my bunny butt to it.

J. — Night-time —

  1. I will go outside my cage and play during the day, when the door is open, rather waiting until the door is closed at night to loudly announce my desire to get out.
  2. I will not carry every single one of my toys to the upper floor of my condo and then drop them down to the first floor at 3 a.m.
  3. I will not hop onto the night stand at bedtime and drink Mom’s herbal tea.
  4. I will not jump all over Mom and Dad at 4:30 a.m. when they are trying to sleep. (Why are humans so lazy?)
  5. I will not leap onto the top of my water bottle at 3:00 a.m. just to see if I can. (Water bottle: 3″ diameter. Sam’s butt: 5″)
  6. I will not pull the sheets off of Mommy’s bed while she is still asleep beneath them.
  7. I will stop sitting on Mommy’s face at 3 a.m. in order to get her to pay attention to me.
  8. Mommy and Daddy do not appreciate me careening off the wall, the couch, the furniture, the boxes in my room, the hallway wall, the stairs, the table, the other set of stairs, and my boyfriend at 4 a.m.
  9. 3:00 a.m. is not a good time for a thump fest.

K. — Noise —

  1. Humans aren’t impressed by a rabbit that grunts and growls.
  2. I do not need to thump and hide when the clock radio goes off in the morning.
  3. I will not growl at the fish tank.
  4. I will not growl at Mom and make her look foolish for being afraid of a 2 lb bunny.
  5. I will not rattle the cage door or try to break out of Alcatraz at 3 am, when I am on time out, when I hear the human walks in the front door, or when I want more food.
  6. I will not scream whenever the emergency signal is broadcast over the radio.
  7. I will not thump and snort if I am not offered some of what the humans are eating.
  8. I will not thump or scream whenever someone plays a noisy computer game.
  9. I won’t thump every time the neighbour’s dog barks.
  10. It is not necessary to thump in response to thunder.
  11. Rattling the bars on my cage will not get me anything good.
  12. The broom is not my enemy, and I do not need to growl at it.
  13. The sound of silverware scraping a plate does not signal danger, and I do not need to thump repeated warnings every time I hear it.
white rabbit inside the hutch
Image Credit: Steve Lovegrove, Shutterstock

L. — Not All There —

  1. An orange vacuum cleaner is not a noisy moving carrot. I will try not to chase Dad and the noisy carrot.
  2. Candles always burn my whiskers, I do not need to keep sticking my face in them to verify this.
  3. I am in no way endangered by the smell of the dog my human petted earlier today.
  4. I can not go through walls no matter how fast I may run at them.
  5. I cannot fit my body through the two-inch space under the bedroom door.
  6. I will *look* before running at top speed so I don’t trip on the phone cord.
  7. I will cease attempting to dig a burrow in the kitchen linoleum. I have been trying for seven years and I haven’t made any headway yet, and I never will.
  8. I will eat the plain yogurt Mommy offers me, instead of backing up and shaking my ears so hard that the humans laugh until they cry.
  9. I will not crawl into the space between my litterbox and cage just because it smells like me.
  10. I will not fight with the fan.
  11. I will not fling my food dish to the other end of the condo when it is empty, then rush back to where it *was* at feeding time.
  12. I will not head-butt the “bunny-gate” at a full run.
  13. I will not leap into the toilet.
  14. I will not make unannounced, flying leaps into solid objects, like entertainment centers. It hurts the head and confuses the bun.
  15. I will not run full speed onto the slippery linoleum floor and try to execute a sharp right turn. Bouncing off the wall is undignified.
  16. I will not take flying leaps at the 2 inch openings in baby gates, to try to ram my head through.
  17. I will not throttle my water bottle. (Pretty catchy, huh?)
  18. I will stop jamming my head inside sweaty Doc Martens and getting high off the smell.
  19. If I want pets I’ll sit still and not dodge away.
  20. Just because I am very still does not mean I am invisible; Mom CAN see me.
  21. No matter how hard I try I can not squeeze out of my cage starting with my nose via the wire gridlines.
  22. Suddenly launching myself from Mommy’s grasp when I am only a foot from my cage will not get me there any faster.
  23. The alarm clock is an inatimate object; I do not need to show it who’s boss.
  24. The crows on the neighbor’s roof are not out to get me.
  25. The telephone is not out to get me.
  26. The vacuum cleaner and mop are good things.
  27. The vacuum cleaner, telephone and crows on the neighbour’s roof are not out to get me.
  28. Velcro and the cat’s food bag are not my enemies.
  29. Yogurt drops are not my enemy. They are good to eat. I do not need to bite them viciously and shake them until they disintigrate.
rabbits inside the hutch
Image Credit: Da Antipina, Shutterstock

M. — Other Critters —

  1. Cat’s tails are not toys.
  2. I am a rabbit, not a cat. (I got Tori when she was a couple months old, and the only other animals around are cats, so she thinks she’s one of them. She even curls up into a ball as much as she can to sleep.)
  3. I will be nice to the fellow rabbits.
  4. I will not act “inappropriately” with Mr. B when company, like the parents of one of Mom’s friends from college, visits.
  5. I will not attack the cat just because I can’t get to that new guy on the other side of the baby gate.
  6. I will not chase the cats.
  7. I will not confuse the patient old family dog with my bunny running zig zags, and cause him to throw up all over the kitchen floor.
  8. I will not drop the sections of newspaper right in front of the cats in order to get them to help shred the newspaper into tiny bits.
  9. I will not eat all the guinea pigs’ food and ignore my own.
  10. I will not egg the other bunny on when she is shredding the water heater blanket.
  11. I will not grab the treat, forcing my mate to chase me around the room in order to get any of it.
  12. I will not hump the male cat, even if he does lie there and take it. (My fiance had a rabbit that did just this.)
  13. I will not hump Jessica’s head when I’m frustrated with the humans.
  14. I will not mark other rabbits.
  15. I will not nip my mate to get him out of the way when treats have been dispensed.
  16. I will not pounce on napping cats.
  17. I will not present myself to the other rabbits for grooming and then rip the fur off their butts as soon as they turn around. (That’ll keep ’em guessing, heh heh heh.)
  18. I will not push the other rabbit off the couch; there is room for both of us.
  19. I will not sit on the guinea pig’s head.
  20. I will not sit on the other rabbit.
  21. I will not stick my nose straight into the hedgehog’s face, for my sake as well as the hedgehog’s.
  22. I will not try to steal bananas from anybun who doesn’t eat as fast as me.
  23. I will not try to practice interspecies genetics.
  24. I will not whip around and try to bite Calvin for no apparent reason. (Jessica, who says “But Mom, I *always* have a reason!”)
  25. I will stop acting macho and actually groom my girlfriend in front of the humans instead of pretending that I don’t when they catch me.
  26. I will stop attacking other things that are bigger than me, i.e. dogs, cats, and humans.
  27. If I wish to make a nest I am to use my fur, not my bunny friend.
  28. My napping father is not a stepping stone for when I want to hop across the cage.
  29. Other bunny’s fur is not for me to steal.
  30. Other bunny’s whiskers are not for *my* amusement.
  31. The mouse is not a disguised predator, and I should stop running for my life when he comes out to play.
  32. The other members of my family have just as much right to have whiskers as I do.
  33. The other rabbit is not a chew toy, food, a teething ring, floss for my teeth, or a between-meals snack.

Featured Image Credit: Laurie E Wilson, Shutterstock