The saga continues
Hey everyone. I have been remiss on posting.
The first couple of weeks were touch and go—literally—I cannot say I really did anything all that remarkable. I set a schedule and got him out each day after dinner. I would hold him and rub his head and behind his ears. This area is supposed to be related to relieving anxiety in accupressure (I tried accupressure, but could not get it right. He hated it, so we just went back to massaging). Then I would slowly massage down his back along his spine making small circles with my fingers. When I finished (about 20 minutes) I would just let him sit there and pet him. He never tried to get up. Just loved being pet. For the first week or two he would not look at me. He would sit between my legs with his butt backing up to me. It makes sense. He was scared. Going face to face is more threatening and turning his back on me was his way of being aloof.
About two weeks into it after our little massage he actually got up and turned around and looked at me. Okay, I admit, I was scared to death. I had shorts on and he whipped around like he used to do just before a charge and attack. I stayed as calm as I could, looking around to make sure the squirt bottle was near. Lo and behold, he just put his chin on my knee (Whew!)
I let that go on for a couple of days more then got brave and took off my gloves once I got him settled in the chair. No problems. A few days later I was feeling full of myself as Kathy would say, and actually retrieved him from his pen without gloves. SUCCESS!!!!! He wriggled a bit, but once he got his little neck scruf in his mouth, he settled right down.
At this point, whenever he sees me, he bounds over to the cage door to come out. I have yet to reach his holding tolerance. He is a super dooper lap bunny. Who would have figured.
The next step was to get him to let me hold him and carry him facing me instead of facing away. My first mistake was only wearing one very thin shirt. He still needs to suck on something when he gets stressed and he went for my shirt. Unfortunately, he got a little skin too. Okay, so two shirts, but no gloves—that is still progress. He totally adores being on my shoulder with his face in my hair. My hubby says he is just poising himself closer to my jugular for when I make him mad. 
Anyhow, the short of the story is that just like many humans who push people away so they cannot get hurt, Hannibal (we now call him Patches) made remarkable strides when people became associated with pleasure and not pain, hunger and fear. I wish all my patients did so well.
Patches/Hannibal was free roam for a while and did quite well, but we got 2 new puppies (much to his chagrin) and he cannot do that right now. When he finds his forever home, I think he will do beautifully as a free-roam bunny.
Today (7/22) he is a bit angry at me and has had a tiny relapse. Yesterday, I did not get him out for his evening massage, today was floor washing day and my hubby needed something in the shelves behind his cage, so I moved him, cage and all. He was more aggressive when I got him out of his cage to put him in the exercise pen, promptly dropped some cecotropes, refused to eat them and came up and nipped me on the hand when I had the audacity to clean them up. I picked him up to put him in his cage and he sprayed me!!! That is the first real nip I have gotten in a few weeks. He still did not nip hard enough to break the skin, but he was clearly telling me I was pushing my luck!
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