Waging war on a badly-behaved bunny

Since moving into Anna’s things have become rather cosy in my bedroom.

“Woohoo, the joys of being single,” I hear you cry.

But in this particular case, sadly that is not what I’m talking about.

Unfortunately, the living arrangements mean that Beans bunny is now sleeping in her cage in the corner of my room, as opposed to her former home in the utility room - a much more sensible set-up. And she has taken to waking me up at intervals throughout the night, every night, by rattling the bars of her cage (which is surprisingly loud in a quiet house) asking to be let out.

Various tactics have been trotted out over the last week to bring an end to this situation.

I initially tried throwing water over her every time she did it, but she soon cottoned onto what was happening and dived off to the back of her cage as I got out of bed, only to return to the front to rattle the bars again whenever I got back into bed.

I tried leaving her loose in the room overnight, and she celebrated by hopping around on my bed and nipping at my toes as I slept.

A couple of nights ago, after being disturbed for the third time, I thought I’d hit upon a solution. I spent ten minutes in the kitchen at about 4am, mixing up a paste of chilli powder, cayenne pepper and paprika, while laughing slightly insanely to myself like a wicked witch at her cauldron (or a mad woman who hasn’t had any sleep).

And seemingly it worked! Bunny sniffed at the paste and then retired to the back of her cage in disgust, and I spent the rest of the night in blissful silence.

Unfortunately Beans bunny is quite the little princess, and wasn’t able to accept my victory without putting up a fight. After letting her out for playtime yesterday, I returned to find she had hit back right where it hurts by chewing one of my books to shreds.

War had officially been declared.

That was the night before last, and I believed I still had the upper hand. So last night I liberally applied some more of my magic mixture to the bars of her cage, and then settled down for what I hoped would be a second silent night.

Sadly it wasn’t to be. At about 2am my badly-behaved bunny decided that actually, she quite liked the taste of my homemade paste after all, and spent the next three hours enthusiastically rattling the bars of her cage chewing at it.

So 5am this morning once again saw me back in the kitchen, blearily rummaging in the cupboard for something else to try. I hit upon English mustard, which secured me a decent three-hour sleep before work this morning. But I did see the rabbit licking at is as I woke up, so I don’t think it’s a long term solution.

So this lunchtime I headed out into Derby’s Eagle Market to try to find something that the rabbit will hopefully find deeply unpalatable. After scouring a few forums, a sympathetic friend suggested rubbing a bar of soap on the bars of bunny’s cage, so I found a particularly vile-smelling pink bar in the bargain bucket of one market stall.

Then I headed to the Jamaican stand, and asked for the hottest sauce they had.

“What’s it for?” the lady behind the counter asked, as she handed me a jar of Mr Naga Very Hot Pepper Pickle.

She laughed when I told her, but then expressed some concerns that the sauce in question might actually blow bunny’s little head clean off.

“Don’t worry,” I explained. “Hopefully the smell alone will be enough to put her off and she won’t even try tasting it.”

“Well,” the stall holder answered. “This is one of the hottest sauces you can buy. We’re the only place in Derby to sell it.”

After promising to go back in a few days and tell the lady whether it worked, I headed off back to the office with my packages, feeling more than a little smug. Human ingenuity WILL win out over bunny bad behaviour.... eventually....