# Rabbit behaviour around cat-I'm confused



## Sophie's Humble Servant (Aug 19, 2013)

Hi,

What does it mean when my cat is walking around the living room and Sophie rabbit is following her, running circles around her and constantly sniffing her tail. Ears are straight up with the openings facing forward. My cat is trying to ignore her for the most part but will occasionally sniff her and will swat at her(without claws). Sophie has also binkied a couple of times beside my cat(which is probably out of excitement).

The other thing Sophie does is she gets really close to my cat's back leg/haunch area and kind of shuffles up to her. Sorry it's sort of difficult to explain it. My cat is just trying to get away from her and Sophie will not stop following her!

My cat Chipsie is pretty tolerant of most things, in fact she is quite submissive and was like tht for years when her sister was still alive.

I'm wondering if rabbits can express dominant behaviour over submissive cats? If so, what do these domiant behaviours look like? It's really bizarre that I'm saying this because I thought for sure that my cat would be the one to pester the rabbit, not the reverse lol.

I'm trying to have them build a relationship with each other so I want to be able to recognise less than ideal behaviours from the beginning so that I can fix or adjust how I'm handling the situation. 

Any insight is appreciated


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## whitelop (Aug 19, 2013)

It sounds like your rabbit is in love with your cat. Those sound like courting behaviors. 
Sophie is saying that she likes your cat. 

A dominant rabbit behavior would be going up to the cat and putting her head under the cat, to be groomed. In rabbit language she is saying "groom me, peasant". My rabbit goes it to one of my cats and the cat grooms her. Clearly my rabbit is superior over the cat. 

Is Sophie spayed? 

This helps to explain the language of the rabbits. 
http://language.rabbitspeak.com/


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## akane (Aug 19, 2013)

Yep that's what Enki(buck) does to his yet unnamed female hutch mate. Even though she can't breed he hops around showing off, bouncing back toward her, follows her closely, and since she's shorter than your cat puts his head on her shoulders and grooms her then bounces away again. It's a "come play and mate with me". Floppy eared female just sits there though which frustrates him.


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## Sophie's Humble Servant (Aug 19, 2013)

whitelop said:


> It sounds like your rabbit is in love with your cat. Those sound like courting behaviors.
> Sophie is saying that she likes your cat.



Wow, I'm so surprised! I was hoping that was the case but I sort of had a fear that maybe Sophie was trying to bully her out of the living room because the living room is the area where Sophie spends all of her time and has rubbed her chin on everything. 



> Is Sophie spayed?



Yes, her and my cat are both spayed.

So should I just watch and monitor then? I hope my cat starts to love her back too! Things are way better already, my cat was pretty scared of Sophie for awhile, now she walks by her and doesn't avoid her as much. 

Maybe Sophie feels more accepted by her!


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## DUSTBUNNY-CLYDE (Aug 19, 2013)

how sweet! I hope one day my cats will get along with the boys!! My 3 older cats just sniff and walk away from them , but baby fuzz- the younger cat seriously wants to eat them!! hahahahaha!!


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## Sophie's Humble Servant (Aug 19, 2013)

Y'know something, Sophie was surrendered to the shelter by her previous owners, reason being she was too scared and showed zero interest in their other rabbit and was apathetic to their dog. That's my Sophie, clearly she's a cat person lol xox


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## Nancy McClelland (Aug 20, 2013)

Neutering doesn't always stop courting behavior in the females--Bonnie would do the same any time I was in the room, constantly made nests out of newspaper, and would attack Nancy's legs if I was in the room. One of us thought it was funny.


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