Rabbits on Leads

[Stellaris22]

Following on from a post in the Doghouse section, I'm interested to hear from actual owners of rabbits.

Would it be appropriate to put your rabbit on a lead and take it to the local park for exercise?

It would be interesting to hear the opinions from non dog owners and would like to avoid dog discussion (avoid another dog bashing thread).

IMO I would consider it cruel to stress a prey animal by putting a harness and lead on it and taking it to a large, unknown open space.

What do rabbit owners think?

I don't understand why you aren't just contributing your opinions to the other thread.

Deer, cows & sheep are prey animals that get involuntarily introduced to large unknown open spaces. Rats routinely run across them voluntarily. Mice & voles choose to frolic in such places. Moles pop up at random in them. Rabbits do sometimes choose to go to new open large spaces to graze. Preyed upon birds have to nest in them. Meh.

I was simply interested to hear if it is common practice amongst rabbit owners to do this as I don't have experience in owning rabbits.

As a child I used to very occasionally take my rabbit out for a walk on a lead (just up and down our cul de sac) but there were no dogs on our street

I wouldn't take a rabbit to a park on a lead! Ridiculous

I have a rabbit, I couldn't imagine putting him on a lead, the way he skits and Binky's around he would tangle himself up. Personally mine is a house rabbit, he goes in the garden but never alone, he gets very scared of birds, so we always have someone watching him when he's outside.

Plus I wanted to hear about pet rabbits, not wild animals. Specifically if it's normal for pet rabbits to be put on a lead.

I tried to put my rabbit on a lead once.
I still remember the screams and the thrashing. He probably thought he was in a snare. The harness wasn’t round his neck.

It’s the only time I ever heard either rabbit scream btw

Thanks everyone. I did think it was an odd thing to do as they are prey animals and it would surely be incredibly cruel and stressful for them.

It really really depends on the rabbit. I had an ex-show rescued giant rabbit, he was the size of a dog. He was perfectly happy to be taken out for an exercise on lead but then was used to certain things from being shown I guess. Trouble was, obviously he drew a lot of attention and he really didn’t like children at all as obviously their movement are unpredictable and not always gentle, they’d be sometimes noisy and overexcitable when they saw him. So I had to be careful to take him out at times he was less likely to encounter them. He had a dog harness and was perfectly happy with me putting it on him.

One of my relatives had a rabbit, but it was exercised in their garden in a run, or freely under close supervision.

I'm not a fan of rabbits and other small pets, but feel that having them on a lead removes their natural flight behaviour (to run away quickly from potential predators). When my dogs are on leads, rabbits and squirrels run away so a rabbit on a lead being walked where there are other larger animals sounds needlessly stressful to them.

But, he’s the only rabbit I’ve had (and I’ve had about ten rescues) that I’d have ever done it with.

No, I would never do it. They are happiest in their own territory and more alert and likely to bolt in unknown areas. There's also a risk of them eating plants which have been treated with weed killer or pesticides or nibbling toxic plants like ragwort.

There is a risk, and I have heard of, rabbits panicking and screaming in fear when the slightest bit of pressure has been put on the lead and harness - they think something has grabbed them around the rib cage.

I did it with my childhood rabbit - he slipped out the harness and bolted for the end of the garden. I never put him in a harness again.

I had a rabbit that I did use to walk on a lead and harness when I was in my teens. Again it was like a previous poster only up and down my very quiet road with no one else around. She liked it, but she wasn't much of a rabbit for running around much so she was happy just walking slowly along looking at sniffing at everything. My 2 rabbits I have now I would not walk on a lead and certainly wouldn't take to a park, it would be too dangerous and frightening for them.

I wouldn't do it. I don't think rabbits should be on a lead. And definitely wouldn't take a rabbit to the park. They could eat grass that dogs or cats had used as a toilet area

I would definitely not do this.