Hoppy hates my dance

I guess Hoppy isn't a fan of my dance floor moves...

So Lazy...

Sorry that I haven't updated this blog for so long. Like Hoppy in this picture, I've been quite lazy. Actually, I've been quite busy the past few weeks. But I do need to do a better job of making time for blog-writing.

Everything is going reasonably well here. Hoppy is now nine months old. It looks like we are going to leave him unneutered; we could not agree on having him neutered, so we are going to, uh, leave things as they are.

Of course, that means Hoppy is quite aggressive nowadays, and quite territorial, especially against me. Lately he has taken a liking to our sofa, which comfortably seats two people but has some room for a rabbit as well. He likes it so much that he leaves what looks like hundreds of daily droppings, and the occasional pee. (Luckily our sofa has removable, washable covers.)

I have every reason to believe that those territorial markings are aimed at ME. If he is on the sofa, and I come and sit down to watch some TV, Hoppy will, at best, walk over to my side and softly nip me in the leg, meaning "You're in my space." At worst, he will lunge, attack, and attempt to bite me. But if my wife sits on the sofa, he will come over to her and ask for a head rub, or sit next to her.

It's much worse when I actually try to clean up those droppings. We have small brooms and dustpans for that task. If he sees me sweeping up his pooh-pooh, he will immediately run at me with his aggressive grunt that I've never heard of any other rabbit doing. I have to use my quickest reflexes to avoid losing a bit of my skin... seriously. I can show you scars on my hands that are a result of me being too slow to get out of the way. But that's not all. For several minutes after that, he will literally follow me around the house, making sure that I am not sweeping up any more of his showpieces.

However, if my wife is the one cleaning up his pooh, all is well. Hoppy will even sit next to her, peacefully watching her sweep up his territorial droppings. Unbelievable.

To get more proof that he hates me in particular, when my mother-in-law came over recently, we had her, a relative stranger, sweep up some of his droppings. And all was well! So basically, Hoppy has some sort of vendetta against me in particular.

My solution to this has been to just give Hoppy more space away from me. I hardly sit on the sofa any more. I let my wife clean up all droppings, and basically handle all Hoppy matters except discipline, which my wife gladly leaves to me. This approach has probably saved me a few dollars on plastic surgery fees for my hands, but more importantly, according to advice I've researched on the Internet, giving him space may help Hoppy to see that I'm not after him or his territory, and this may lead to him being nicer to me. We will see.