Rabbit says hands off!

One of my rabbits will not let me pick her up when I want to clean her cage. She freezes, growls and tries to run away. Her companion doesn’t do this and I am wondering if there’s anything I can do.

It would be helpful to get an understanding of why your rabbit behaves in this way. She clearly finds being picked up threatening.

This behaviour in a prey species like a rabbit is unsurprising. Unlike human infants that are accustomed to being picked up from birth, rabbits in many cases will never have become accustomed to being handled. Hands, therefore, are threatening.

The normal response of rabbits to a threat follows a well-defined path.

Initially it is either to freeze, and hope the threat will go away, or make a run for it. If this fails the rabbit can turn threatening.

You have experienced the first of these threats – growling. Fortunately it hasn’t progressed to the next level, which is lunging at you or even trying to chase you away. If all else fails, a threatened rabbit will inflict a painful bite.

I read in a recent survey of rabbit owners that 13 per cent had been threatened and nearly a quarter admitted to having been bitten at least once.

Getting your rabbit used to handling might be best done with the help of a rabbit behaviourist using treats as a reward and a lot of patience.

In the short term, extending the hutch by joining it to a run should ensure cleaning is possible.

I noticed recently that our 12-year-old cat was breathing more quickly when he was asleep. I was shocked when the vet told me that he was in heart failure. He is improving on treatment but may need to see a specialist, although I am not sure I can afford this.

You did very well to notice the increased respiratory rate, as I would not expect most owners to observe any change in breathing.

Heart failure in cats is usually associated with a disease called cardiomyopathy. The most common form of this is hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). This causes the heart muscle, typically of the left ventricle, to become thickened, reducing the amount of blood in the chamber. There are other less common types of cardiomyopathy too.

HCM affects 15 per cent of the general cat population and in old cats this figure increases to 29 per cent. Not all of these cats will develop congestive heart failure, although nearly a quarter do.

Symptoms of congestive failure in cats are often subtle compared to dogs.

Cats rarely cough, but may be more lethargic than usual. Some lose weight and have a poor appetite. The only reliable sign is the increase in respiratory rate you noticed. The problem is often picked up in routine health checks.

Your vet may have noticed abnormal heart sounds or chest congestion using a stethoscope.

Some cats in heart failure can live for months on treatment but ultrasound images will identify the exact cardiomyopathy type and give a more accurate prognosis. A specialist opinion is worth the extra expense.