Deductive Reasoning

I have a pet rabbit named Bunbun. Yes, she was originally named after the Sluggy Freelance character.





She's a 7 year old grey lop, getting a little old (some of her grey spots are going white) but still full of all kinds of trouble.

For reference - Bunbun's pen is currently in storage in Orlando. It was too big to bring with me in my initial move to Venice. Her pen is her territory, and the rest of the house is human territory, especially the bedroom, which is mine. Everyone generally respects that, even cats, upon whom Bun lays the smack down if they get too uppity. When I live alone, Bunbun gets to roam freely around the house, with the exception of "no-no" rooms she knows she is not allowed in, like the kitchen. Rabbits are stubborn, but they aren't stupid. I would say that Bunbun is about as smart as a sort of dumb dog and she is capable of learning simple commands and rules like "don't go in the kitchen". Other things are harder to work with because you can dampen but can't really override certain instincts, such as digging and chewing. She has been taught not to dig at and chew on carpet, but it has taken YEARS.

For the most part though, when I live with roommates, Bunbun lives in a pen, which she understands she is supposed to stay in. It's pretty much voluntary, since the walls of the pen are only about 2 feet high, but as long as you designate it as 'hers' and the area she is supposed to stay in, and she has plenty of entertainment, she will stay put. The pen's about half the size of the livingroom, so it's not like she's being confined to a tiny cage, and when the household has other pets or household members who are not as dedicated to rabbit safety in it, it's safer for her to stay in the pen.

Anyway, I can't let Bun have full run of the apartment, since I'm currently staying with relatives, but I couldn't make her live in her cage, since it's basically a glorified potty. I've tried taking the cage away but she actually likes it and refuses to go to the bathroom anywhere else. Last time I tried to give her a litter box, she turned it upside-down and wore it as a hat.

Her makeshift pen is her cage pushed up against an entertainment center that's set at a right angle to one of the walls in the corner. It creates a 4 foot gap between the shelf and the wall, and the shelf's about 5 feet long. It's not a huge pen, but it's temporary, and safer than having her run around the house, which is full of cords and dangerous things. The catch is that the shelf is an entertainment center, and has an opening in it about 2 feet off the ground that you can rest a television set in.

Bunbun has a large cardboard box with a hole cut in the side that functions like a doghouse. She also has a shoe box to throw around and play with. Well, this morning she shoved the box up against the back of the shelf and the shoe box up against the box, creating stairs. She hopped up her makeshift stairway into the opening, where she sat looking like she was so proud of herself she was going to burst. Victory thus achieved, she did not do the logical thing and escape. Instead, she started throwing things from her cage out of the opening, which caused such a racket that my mother ran into the livingroom to see what the hell was going on. Realizing she'd been caught, Bunbun leapt back into her pen and hid in her box. I guess she assumed she was in trouble. Of course, instead of punishing her, Mom gave her a treat for being ingenious enough to come up with the box scheme. In retrospect, this could explain why my brother and I are currently so demented.
I've plugged up the opening with a few heavy boxes, and Bun is sulking in the corner.