Cookie: Destructive habits

Thanks to training and having her spayed, Cookie is a fairly well-behaved rabbit. She doesn’t do her business outside of her litter box, she knows when it’s time to stay in her pen and when she’s allowed out, and she doesn’t attack without being provoked.

That being said, there are a few destructive habits that I just can’t seem to break her of. Cookie, like most rabbits, quite enjoys chewing and digging.

Now, some of that is under control. She doesn’t chew the furniture (mostly) and she doesn’t chew baseboards. But to be honest, I think that comes more from her distaste for wood than it does any sort of control I may have over her.

To help keep her destructive habits within reason, I buy her things that she’s allowed to chew up or dig in. Like this basket:

When I first placed it in her pen, she wouldn’t do more than sniff at it. It took almost a week for her to go inside. But “going inside” usually means sticking her head and front paws in so that she can dig out the bottom. Which is fine–that’s what it’s there for–I just wasn’t expecting her to have most of the bottom gone already. And that’s taking into account the weeks when she was bored with it.

Oddly, though, the things she enjoys chewing on the most are the things that don’t cost me anything. Toilet paper rolls and pieces of cardboard, mostly. The toys I’ve bought often go untouched.

But her absolute favourite thing to chew on her is pen.

I’m not quite sure what she’s expecting to accomplish when she does this. She isn’t going to manage to chew herself out–or, in this case, in. I don’t know how well it levels down her teeth, since she puts them around the bars rather than on them. And I can’t imagine that it tastes very good.

But, hey, she’s not hurting herself and she isn’t succeeding in destroying anything. So she can go ahead and chew those bars all she wants.

After all, it’s a lot better than her attempts to dig a burrow in the couch.