Pavlov and rabbits.

I have excel on my computer now and I've been aching to have some time to record some data. I don't collect data in my normal life but recently I decided to conduct a Pavlov-ian experiment with Skip.

Some house rabbits are better at house-living than others. I love Skip but he's not one of those easy house rabbits. I hate to be negative about his inability to cope with being in human world so I usually try to think about what an amazing, savage bunny I have living in my home and how he'd survive forever in the wilderness... unlike those "other" delicate bunnies, ah... such wimps.

So, anyway, I found some random jingle bells around the house and in my craft closet at school and wrapped them around some pipe cleaners. For approximately 30 seconds prior to displaying food in front of Skip I jingle the bells. Skip loves bells so his ears always perk up when I get the pipe-cleaner-jingle-bell loop out. The idea is not to have Skip salivate at the sound of the bell (who wants rabbit saliva on your floor anyway?) but that he'll come to me when the bell rings. Being the fast, snarling rabbit he is, I'm hoping this will increase the ease of catching and corralling that is necessary in training a bunny to be well behaved.

If you are a dog owner, please appreciate that Skip's brain is significantly smaller so success here will be a tremendous achievement. There are no books on rabbit training so I'm really reaching here into any kind of classical conditioning measures available to me.

I'm also working on the game "bonk." Skip and I made it up. Basically it is a rabbit version of throw and catch except it involves a good nose bonk. He seems to get it for a little while but then loses interest. Without thumbs or a big mouth, catching is tough, especially when your instincts are to run from all things moving toward you.