Video Share: Bunny Holding His Food To Eat

A change of plan today, swapping around content between today and tomorrow since Leo was less than cooperative about having his picture taken today. So tune in tomorrow for the follow-up to Booda Don’t.

This is an adorable bunny in this video. I have never seen a bunny hold food this way or eat while on its back. This is just such a cutie.

A direct link to the video: Baby Rabbit Holds His Own Food

How We Learned to Medicate Shadow

Shadow responded best for treatments to a firm but open hold

Just relaxing in a football hold here

When Shadow became so ill with the ear infection and needed months of antibiotic treatment, it was a learning experience not only in the diagnosis, but also in how to handle giving him the needed medicine. At first when he was really ill the first couple days and needing shots, we used the means of holding a rabbit down that I had first learned with my family’s first rabbit, Thumper. The vet had taught us to hold him flat to a table with pressure along the spine and shoulders to keep him from flipping and injuring his spine. It is a good idea to make sure to have your vet show you how to immobilize your rabbit for treatments at home if it is ever needed.

However, as I had written before after a couple of days of shots Shadow was well enough that he could flex his muscles and bend the needle even though he couldn’t move to get away. We switched over to a by mouth antibiotic that was given by syringe into the side of his mouth. Since I had more previous experience holding squirmy little bodies, nursing both rabbit and human babies, we started out at first with me holding Shadow immobile on a table so that Blaine could syringe the meds into him. Unlike Thumper and human babies, Shadow was extremely athletic and his hind legs were incredibly strong. As he started to regain a bit of his strength on the meds, he was able to kick back with his back legs. Let me tell you even with a small sick rabbit, those back legs are incredibly strong and when he kicked me in the stomach, I thought I was going to lose breakfast.

So, we tried the other method suggested for rabbits of using a towel to mummy / burrito wrap the rabbit so that only the head is free. That is when we discovered that Shadow was like many humans and clearly had a serious claustrophobic streak. He went completely berserk, thrashing, biting, and scratching. It was nearly impossible to safely get him back to the floor while we regrouped. It was clear if we tried to stick with the mummy / burrito idea, someone was going to get hurt, possibly all of us. It occurred to me that maybe just as many humans tolerate getting MRI’s with a more open style of machine, that maybe Shadow could be treated with a firm but more open style of holding.

So, I put on and buttoned up a denim jean jacket with the collar turned up for some protection if Shadow tried to scratch or bite and picked him up and held him up on my shoulder baby style with his head facing back over my shoulder. I had one hand firmly on the back of his head and shoulders with my forearm along his spine and the other hand firmly holding his bottom. If I felt him start to move, I pressed my forearm and hand more firmly along his spine and shoulders to hold him steady. Now this position isn’t something that would work at all well for lots of rabbits, some might try to go over the shoulder, but for Shadow it worked. The more open hold clearly made him feel less threatened. He would gnaw on the jacket in protest between getting his meds syringed in a bit at a time, but he didn’t go nuts like he did with the towel wrapping. Over the months he needed to be medicated, we were able to control the situation and safely get him the meds he needed without hurting him or creating the terror reaction the towel wrapping tries had brought on.

Next week the story of Shadow and parsley …

 

 

Boarding a Tigger

Food bag for a TiggerEarly on during the second month we had Tigger, we had to board her for a weekend. We had an out-of-town committment and started looking into options of caring for her while we were gone.  We didn’t know anyone else who knew how to care for rabbits and when we checked with the vet, although they knew people who did rabbit sitting, they said they couldn’t recommend them.  So we checked into having her boarded by the vet.

It was really hard planning to leave her, she was a little less than four months old and still baby tiny at about three to three and half pounds.  We packed up a bag for her with her pellets and hay.  We brought along one of her small litter boxes with her litter and brought some toys she liked.  We also brought along a small cardboard box with a hole cut in the side.  I had written out a paper that started out, “Hi, my name is Tigger … with what she liked, didn’t like and what really freaked her out.   Never let it be said that Princess Tigger traveled lightly.  We probably had about five to ten pounds of stuff that came along with her.  I even had all her food packed in a cute Tigger bag.

We arranged everything in the kennel cage for her and put her in.  We tried to bring everything we could that would make her feel that she was surrounded with her own things and had all her usual foods.  It was easier that she wasn’t on fresh greens at that point yet.  Then we left for the weekend and it was really hard wondering how she was doing.  She was all alone back in an environment like the pet shop again with lots of other animal sounds nearby.

On Monday when we went to pick her up, as the kennel manager was leading us back to where she was being kept, he told us she had spent the whole weekend hiding in the cardboard box and had only come out briefly at times to eat, drink and use the litter box.  He said they had barely seen her.  As we approached the corner of the aisle her cage was in, we weren’t expecting to see Tigger after what we had been told.  Instead, we saw her right away.  She was in the corner of the cage closest to the aisle and was sitting up on her hind legs stretched out to her full height.  It was pretty clear she had heard and recognized our voices and was begging for us to take her home.

Blaine says it is okay to say that the sight completely melted his heart and turned him into a blubbering idiot.  I have to take his word on that.  All I know is that he bundled her into her carrier and took off with her while I was still gathering things up and then settling the bill.  One minute they were there and the next, I was on my own.  When I got out to the car, Blaine said we were never going to leave her all alone anywhere again and we didn’t.  It made us realize that Tigger was not going to be a good single bunny.  She was simply too unhappy and scared being left on her own.  We realized that we needed to find her a rabbit buddy.  Next week, I will start to tell the tales of how that came to be Shadow.

The spay story together with this ran too long, so I will share that tale on its own tomorrow …

Princess Lady Bunny

Little Lady bunny Tigger with paws just so.Tigger had a way of positioning herself that was just so very proper that we called her the little lady bunny.  She would always have her little paws lined up side by side completely even and balanced.  It always reminded me of old movies or TV shows with the ladies in hats and gloves who would have both hands side by side holding their purses so very properly.

We called her Princess because she decidedly had a sense of what was due to HRH Princess Tigger bunny rabbit.  When she would enter a room, she would pause and thump.  It became the Tigger has entered the room announcement, pay attention.  She also thumped when she was mad.  If you offended the royal rabbit by picking her up and messing with her for medicine or clean ups or feedings, as soon as you put her back down there was a thump or two or more of outrage depending on how big she deemed the offense. If she became really frightened, she would run into the sheet tunnel we had for the rabbits or under the guest bed and would become a serial thumper.  After she calmed down, she would have that over the shoulder little nose in the air, pouty look.  Or sometimes she would hop away while flicking the back feet showing herself to be offended.

Now Tigger was very catlike in being quite independent, but when Princess Tigger wanted attention, you were supposed to be ready, willing and able to pay her the attention she deemed fitting.  I made the mistake once of sitting on the floor while talking on the phone and forgetting all about her.  That is until she snuck up behind me and gave me a pinching nip on my behind and took off running away.  I had been warned I was behaving offensively.  I squealed into the phone as she nipped me and had to apologize and explain.  Then I stood up to finish the call and went to attempt to soothe Princess Tigger’s outraged feelings of being ignored.

Her sneak up and nip wasn’t limited to my one phone experience.  If she didn’t feel Shadow was paying her enough of the right attention, she would sneak up behind him and give him a nip and take off running.  It was a good thing she was quite a bit faster than he was.  They would run and tire themselves out and then forget why they had been running and go back to being as they were again.

HRH Princess Tigger just absolutely delighted in going right into the middle of the room in front of the fireplace to eat her soft serve cecal snack or give herself a head to toe bunny bath. Why wouldn’t everyone want to watch her every bunny move?  Ah, well, she knew she was cute and she knew she was special.  She worked it for all a bunny could to get the attention she wanted when she wanted it.  It wasn’t at all hard to mentally picture a sparkly tiara on that little bunny head.

Tomorrow boarding a Tigger & spay time …

Call This Tigger TMI

Tigger troubleThere are a couple of things I will write about that some may feel falls in the too much information category.  In case anyone else finds themselves dealing with similar things bunnies do that aren’t quite for polite society, just know you aren’t alone.

So, teenage hormones in any species can be a train wreck for everyone trying to deal with the raging hormone levels and behavior that can go with them.  I had read about the territorial aggression and sexual frustration that can be seen in unaltered rabbits.  Although my early house rabbit experience was with an unaltered male, he had been a pretty mellow little guy.  I wasn’t quite sure what to expect with Tigger as she neared the age to be spayed, but had read that rabbits who aren’t spayed or neutered can be quite a destructive handful in addition to all the babies they can produce.  Tigger’s chewing behavior was decidedly starting to be a problem.

Now this part of female rabbit hormonal behavior I hadn’t seen written about before and would have questioned if I hadn’t experienced it with two little girl bunnies myself.  The first experience was with Tigger as she was turning about five months of age.  She was getting to be a tiny terror with her attitude going over the edge from sassy cute to just plain ugly.  Worse, there came times that she actually frightened me.  She was still only about four pounds of bunny, but I found myself one day sitting on the guest bed as she was stalking around me and giving me what I can only call nasty evil looks.  I was afraid to take my eyes off of her as she paced behind me, because I truly thought she just might charge me and bite me.  There was a look in her eyes I had not seen from her before.  It was clear she suddenly regarded me as the enemy for some reason.

So what had set her off?  Guys, I apologize, but the little stinker was obviously quite aware I was putting out my own female hormones quite strongly.   She was not liking it one little bit.  I didn’t really put it together until a few days later when she was suddenly calmer right in sync with me. I had a couple of months before she was old enough to be spayed and another afterwards before all her hormones left her system to see that she was not liking my hormonal times at all.  She was four pounds of female rabbit anger and outrage.  She did the best menacing stalking I have ever seen in an animal so tiny.  I was genuinely relieved a month after her spay when Tigger mellowed out again to just her original energetic sassy self and I didn’t have to keep watching my back at times.

This wasn’t just a fluke with Tigger.  The second time I experienced hormonal clashes with a female rabbit was when Blaine and I had agreed to help out by caring for and showing a rescue bunny that was being kept at a local pet store.  We went in on a Saturday to clean out the rabbit’s cage and set up a pen for her to run in to let people see her and get to know her.  She was just out of recovery from her spay and had been described as a really sweet interactive rabbit.  So, I wasn’t prepared at all for a rabbit that wanted to attach herself to my ankle and gnaw away like a rabid animal.  It was really hard to tell people what a wonderful pet she could be for them when they would look down at her and ask me, “Isn’t she biting your ankle?” I finally had to step out of the pen completely and let Blaine take over.  She didn’t seem to be having any problems with him. Like Tigger, she had recognized that another  active female had entered her territory.  She obviously still had enough hormones in her system to recognize and respond to what she regarded as a territorial threat.

The second less mentioned thing about our Tigger is that she truly was a little stinker.  Very early on, she was laying up on top of her cage with her back to me as I kneeled on the floor to pet her when I got a huge breath of noxious air.  I thought, oh wow rabbit, what did you just do?  When I moved her behind, there was nothing to see.  That is when it dawned on me that Tigger had just let out a silent but deadly (SBD) gaseous cloud large enough and stinky enough to make a skunk proud.

I wish that I could say the SBD was a one time event, but Tigger had a habit of being able to produce an unending supply of gas if she got freaky nervous.  She would run around the room spewing toxic gases and would quite literally clear the room, because it was unbearable to stay.  We would be gasping with our eyes running as we fled for clearer air.  There wasn’t anything the vet could find wrong with her on exams.  It was a heck of a defense mechanism against being picked up or chased by Shadow.  If she was wanting to be left alone, she knew how to accomplish it!

Tomorrow Princess Lady Bunny …

The Kitty Cat Bunny Rabbit

Well Hello, Tigger!So what is a kitty cat bunny rabbit?  Tigger had so many characteristics like a kitten or cat.  First there was her desire to scratch rather than bite.  She was constantly grooming herself more than any cat I have ever seen.  She was very conscious of keeping her fur in pristine condition.

We read a suggestion when Tigger and Shadow were little to use a spray bottle with water to give bunnies a squirt to discourage bad behavior.  Well Shadow would shake water squirts off like a puppy and continue being bad.  Tigger hated the water and would slink away like a cat, but furtively try to sneak back in later to continue when she hoped we weren’t watching.

Tigger was very independent.  She knew her name, no and lots of other words, but whether she responded, depended on whether she decided she felt like it.  She loved to preen for the camera.  And she wanted to be petted, but on her terms.  Those cute kitty style flops we showed on Wednesday, she would often get into the sweetest curled up positions and then look straight at us with those beautiful brown eyes.  It was an invitation to come pet her, she was ready and waiting now.  We called it her cute bunny con jobs, still we fell for it every time we saw it. 

The altered photo art piece I have shared today was created with the magic of Photoshop since I couldn’t ever catch this on film in real life.  Later in life, Tigger was more proactive and just a bit less distant when she wanted to be petted.  She would come to where we were sitting on the sofa or loveseat, stand up on her hind legs and peek over the edge to catch our eyes.  Then she would sink back down on the floor and hen up or flop out right below where our hand would be so that we could just reach down and pet her.

She was a bunny who purred.  She would tooth purr when we petted her, when Shadow groomed her or when you talked to her sweetly from across the room telling her she was a good bunny.  It was so soft, you rarely heard sound, but would feel or see her jaw gently moving and would know she was happily purring away.

Coming next week, Tigger gets into everything.

The Model Bunny Rabbit

Tigger posing for the camera
You worked it baby girl!

From early on when the camera would come out, Tigger would pose.  This series of photos was all taken at one time within just a few minutes.  Tigger seemed to instinctively know to show off all sides of herself to the camera.  We really believe she knew she was beautiful. 

She had a way of moving that was dainty, delicate, precise and smooth.  Unless she was freaked by something, she was all very coordinated ballet like moves.  She may not have liked being picked up, but she loved attention.  If I brought out a camera and was taking pictures of Shadow and had no idea where Tigger was, usually within just a few minutes she would be hoping in and taking over the photo shoot.

Besides her desire to pose, we called Tigger our model bunny because of her finicky eating habits.  She was always slender, bordering on anorexic thinness and quite fussy about her food.  We always joked she was on the model diet, avoiding eating whenever possible, but grabbing yummy treats from time to time.  Tigger would sniff meal offerings and sometimes hop away.  We would put salad greens on a plastic picnic plate and she would sometimes take the plate and toss the salad.  Other times she would overturn pellet or hay bowls if they weren’t to her taste.  There was nothing physically wrong with her that the vet could find, she was just a really picky eater.   

One time when we had Tigger, Shadow and Portia, we received new pellets and hay from our regular company and the taste obviously differed significantly from past seasons.  All three bunnies turned their noses up at the new food.  We got some of the old season and mingled it in with the new and within a couple of days Shadow and Portia were eating it.  Tigger held out for two weeks refusing to touch the new.  We were feeding her lots of greens to make sure she was eating enough and checking her weight too. 

We spent a lot of time during the first five years of Tigger’s life following her around begging her to eat.  Then she suddenly started to eat as if she was making up for all the years of lost time.  We said that it was obvious our model bunny had retired and now intended to enjoy life to the full. 

We had never thought we would see our Tigger chubby.  The last six years of her life we had to watch that she didn’t eat too much fattening food.  We had to protect Shadow so that she didn’t hassle or attack him trying to steal his treats or push him away from food.  She would run dancing around our feet as we carried food and dive at the plates of greens as soon as they were put down acting like a starving rabbit.  Sometimes she would move to stand on the plate hovering above the food making it hard for Shadow to get his share.  She became chubby at times and we would have to put her on a more restricted diet to get her weight back down again.  

Next post on Friday, the Kitty Bunny …

Meet the Velcro Rabbit

Tigger the Velcro RabbitPreviously, I wrote about how much Tigger hated being picked up and held.  There came to be one place that was an exception for her where she wanted me to hold her and not put her down.

It was my custom at vet visits to keep handling of Tigger to a minimum thinking that was what she prefered.  So I would pick her up out of her carrier, put her on the scale to get her weight and then put her right back into the carrier afterwards until the vet would come in to examine her.  I discovered Tigger the Velcro Rabbit by accident.  Usually, I am wearing knit tops, Tees for the most part.  On one visit when she was about a year and a half old, it was chilly and I had on a sweater.

I was following my usual procedure and after the weigh in, I picked Tigger back up intending to put her back in her carrier.  That was when I discovered she was attached to my sweater.  She had hooked her little claws around the loose knit weave and wasn’t letting go.  I held on to her petting her and talking to her while we waited for the vet.  It was a bit of a problem detaching her from my sweater to then put her down for the exam when the vet came in.  It occurred to me that the vet’s office was perhaps an exception to Tigger’s don’t hold me rule. 

After that visit when she needed to go in, I would hold her and talk to her while we waited for the vet.  Many times she would hide her head underneath my arm and not want to even look around.  She would try to hold on to me and not want to be put down for the exam.  At times if the vet or vet tech forgot and didn’t continue to hold her quite firmly at the end the exam, she would actually make a little leap off the table straight into my arms.  I made sure to be standing right at the table at all times talking to her, petting her head or covering her eyes if she was getting really scared.  My rabbit was like Velcro and sticking to me in preference over the vet. I was clearly her chosen security. 

It was humbling and awesome to know that I had earned her trust to the level that she was placing herself in my care by her choice.  From that time forward whenever I held her at the vet or later in life when we needed to hold her for medicine, feedings or to clean her up, she also earned the nickname Baby Girl.  That is how we would be talking to her at those times:  “It’s okay Baby Girl”, “It will be over soon Baby Girl”, “We’ll look after you Baby Girl’, “Good Tigger, sweet Baby Girl”.

If it hadn’t been for wearing that sweater, I might not have discovered how much Tigger had come to regard me as her protector and that she wanted me to hold her and comfort her at the vet’s office.  So if you have a very independent rabbit and are trying to respect that, you might want to check to see if the vet’s office is an exception zone where they too would actually like some comfort cuddling.  We never took Tigger to the vet unnecessarily just to get cuddles, but it was a bonus to the visits to be able to make the visits better for her and get some snuggles in return.  Because of what we learned from Tigger, we also discovered that Shadow too sometimes wanted to be held and comforted while at the vet.  

 

Tasmanian Devil Bunny

Abstract of Tasmanian Devil BunnyNo pictures on this one.  However, they would have been a blur of motion like this abstract drawing where you see the jumble and tumble of swirling bunny parts.  It is a bit dizzying to look at and so was Tigger if you picked her up as a baby bunny. 

Tigger was like trying to hold on to the whirling dervish Tasmanian Devil of the Bugs Bunny cartoons.  You saw motion and body parts with brief stops.  Tigger tended not to stop until I would get smart and put her back down.  She made it quite clear that to her the term four on the floor also applied to rabbits.  All four paws were to remain on the floor unless she decided on a lift off. 

It was a real exercise to hold on to her safely as she would squirm, wiggle, somersault and do flip-flops in my arms.  In a blur of dizzy speed her head would be up, down, right, left and then repeat the process …  Everywhere the head went the little paws followed and those little paws had kitty sharp claws.  It was early summer in Georgia when we got her, so I was usually in a V neck Tee and shorts.  I would end up scratched all over my arms, legs, neck and Tigger usually managed to get at least one paw hooked into the V neck of my shirt, so I got a good measure of scratches on my chest too.  It was embarrassing to have to admit that a rabbit less than three pounds had mauled me.

I kept trying to pick her because up at first we hadn’t gotten the room with her cage bunnyproofed and I would carry her to the kitchen for run times.  We got that room bunnyproofed pretty quickly and fortunately Tigger was a quick study with the litter box so we didn’t need the easy clean kitchen for long. Then I could allow some of the wounds to heal for a bit.  I continued trying to pick her up but a little less often, attempting to get her used to being held.  Tigger never really got with the whole being held program with one exception that I will talk about in the next post. 

We had wanted to try to do nail clippings at home, but always had to take her to the vet for that.  She needed the fear factor of the trip to hold still enough for exams and nail trims.  Even with that fear factor, it would take three people for exams, two to hold her while the vet examined and two people for nail trims, one to hold and one to trim.  Since Tigger’s top weight was never higher than 5 1/2 pounds, it was extremely close quarters for the humans at vet visits trying to hold one very small bunny rabbit still without stepping all over each other.

It was just amazing how strong and agile one small bunny rabbit could be.  Later in life when she needed medicating or cleaning up due to old age issues, she would still run like crazy trying to get away, not wanting to be picked up.  The difference was that when I did pick her up, she would be amenable to getting things over and done with as soon as possible so that I would put her back down.  Still, she was a two person job.  One of us had to hold her, while the other medicated her or worked on fur cleaning issues.  The response to being put back down did not change no matter what her age.  Once she hit the floor, she would hop off a bit flicking her back paws as she went and would then stop and thump once or a few times depending on how violated she felt by our interference with her person.

We tried to respect Tigger’s desire not to be picked up and only picked her up when her care or safety required it.  The rest of the time, we chose to get to know her and let her get to know us on her terms.  We sat on the floor or laid on our stomach or side on the floor, letting her come to us to interact as she chose.  The room she was in at first was a combination guest bedroom / office.  Sometimes we would sit on the floor with our backs up to the bed.  Tigger would hop on our laps and run up our bodies to get up on the bed. Later she learned to take flying leaps up on the bed and would play with us there.  Blaine would take a sock and play a very gentle tug of war by just giving her some resistance with him holding on to the sock so that she was the one actually tugging at it.  That usually tired her out and she would then take a nap between his legs.

Getting to know Tigger on her terms was rewarding.  Many times over the years she would hop up and bestow sweet bunny kisses on our foreheads.  As she slowed down some late in life, we would have the opportunity to lay beside her snuggling for a time while petting her. 

Coming Next on Friday, meet the Velcro Rabbit.

What’s Your Name Bunny Rabbit?

Baby Tigger Bunny RabbitOur little Tigger bunny was unforgettable.  Her looks were  unqiue, but she also packed a truly big rabbit personality into her little bunny size.  The vet she saw the longest summed it up when she said, “Tigger is many things, but stupid isn’t one of them!”  We had many nicknames for her over the years because of the oh so many sides to her looks and personality. 

We had read that it helps a rabbit to get to know their name by hearing it in every sentence to associate that name as being theirs.  We talked to her a lot all of her life. At first, we ended almost every sentence with her name.  However, Tigger might have thought at times that her name was “No, Tigger!” or “Tigger, No!”.  We found ourselves saying that a lot as she taught us a whole new level of bunnyproofing.  We didn’t shorten her name or call her anything else until it was clear that she recognized that when we said Tigger, we were talking to her.  In the decade with her, we embraced every possible variant of her name: Tig, Tigs, Tigster, Tiggers, Tiggery, Tiggirl. 

It always surprised people who weren’t familiar with rabbits that she knew her name.  She actually came to know a whole lot of words and phrases.  We were certain without doubt she knew her name, because when we had both rabbits and would yell “No Shadow”, Tigger would ignore us.  She knew we weren’t talking to her.  When we called her name, she would react.  It wasn’t always the reaction we wished, but she would react to her name.   We could be across the room and if we started to say, “Good Tigger, Good Bunny”, she would start to tooth purr.  We would be able to see her jaw gently moving as she purred.

There were a couple of nicknames she earned by her size and shape:  Half-Pint Harley, Little Bit, Hipless Wonder, Weasel Bunny.  Most nicknames we called Tigger were based on her personality:  Princess, Lady Bunny, Tasmanian Devil, Air Bunny, Wiggle Worm, Freakazoid, Squirrel, Tiny Terror, Little Stinker, Pretty Bunny, Model Bunny, Kitty Bunny, Velcro Rabbit, Baby Girl.

How did one very small rabbit come to have so many names? All these nicknames have a story.  By telling you her nicknames now, I am giving a preview of some stories to come.  Tigger packed an awful lot into her decade of life.  She so rarely looked to be really resting.  Most of the time she seemed to be plotting and planning her next move, the next thing she would try.  She was energetic beyond belief for the bulk of her life, right up until just the last few months.  It was like having a living breathing Energizer bunny rabbit who would just keep on going and going.  It was amazing to know her!

Coming Next on Wednesday, meet the Tasmanian Devil bunny.

 

So, How Many Chins Does a Rabbit Have?

Tigger chinning one of her toys

My toys must have my scent!

The title is a bit of a trick question.  As a noun, a rabbit has one chin.  Turn chin into a verb by saying a rabbit chins things and a rabbit has as many chins as they want to have.

Tigger was religious about chinning things.  She would make the rounds on a regular basis chinning everything in her cage and her play area.  I knew that rabbits had a scent gland in their chin and liked to claim things by chinning them, but I had never seen any other rabbit be quite so territorial as Tigger.  Tigger was always on the move and as she moved she would chin things.  It was almost as if you could see the little bunny mind thinking, “This is mine, this is mine and this is mine too.”   Everything was regularly and thoroughly claimed by Tigger.
 
It was hard to pet Tigger because she was so much on the move.  After she would hop into her cage to get her bedtime treats, she knew it was settle down time.  It was one time we could usually open up the cage door and be able to pet her (blocking it with our bodies though against potential escapes).  There was a ritual first that had to be observed before we could actually pet her.  Tigger would sniff the hand reaching in.  Then she would chin the hand.  Only then would she lay down and put her head down in position to allow the human hand to pet her.
 
The rituals that were so much a part of Tigger are what had us calling her Princess very early on.  She wasn’t ever ready for interaction with any living being until she had observed her rituals first.  You had to know how you had to present yourself to Tigger or she would be hopping away in a huff.  The little nose would go up in the air, the back would turn and then off she would hop, sometimes with a thump.
 
Anyone else have a rabbit with an abundant number of chins?