Wondering how to teach a rabbit to high five with you? Well, you are in the right place. Teaching some basic tricks to pet rabbits is quite easy if you have an easy to follow guide and know exactly what to expect on each step.
Once your rabbit learns how to high five it will be a really cool trick to show off to all your friends! So here is a step by step guide on how to teach a rabbit to high five.
- Motivate Your Rabbit With Food
- Get Your Rabbit To Stand Up
- Let Your Rabbit Place Their Paws On Your Hand
- Try To Only Support One Of Their Paws
- Add Verbal & Hand Cues While Practicing
- Repeat Everyday To Perfect It
Teaching a rabbit to high five is easy as that and as long as you follow these six easy steps, you and your bunny will be high five masters in no time. Now let’s learn each of these steps in some more detail.
Motivate Your Rabbit With Food
The first part of teaching a pet rabbit any trick is to make sure that they are motivated and interested in learning. A rabbit who is not interested will be really hard to teach anything so make sure that you have plenty of treats and lots of patience when you start training your rabbit.
Treats for teaching a rabbit how to high five can just be regular rabbit pellets or bits of their favorite fruit. As long as you can hold the attention of your rabbit you should be good to go.
Start out by interacting and playing with them as well as giving them an occasional treat during play time. This can help to get them used to interacting and playing with you as well getting them hooked on the treats so that it can be used as rewards during training.
Get Your Rabbit To Stand Up
The next step in training a rabbit to high 5 is to getting them to stand up. Even though this step seems completely unrelated to giving them a high five, you have to remember, most rabbits have really short arms and may not be able to balance themselves during a high five if they are on all fours.
This is why getting them to stand up can really help making the rabbit more comfortable while learning how to high five.
To make a rabbit stand on its feet, show them a treat and slowly raise it beyond their reach. If you do this slowly then you may see your rabbit standing up straight to get a hold of the treat you are offering.
Keep doing this for a couple of days to make sure that your rabbit is really comfortable while standing and happily taking treats out of your hands while standing up.
If you see that your rabbit is not standing or is losing their balance while standing then don’t worry. Some rabbits such as smaller breeds such as Dwarf rabbits or really large rabbits like Flemish giant rabbits can find it a bit difficult to stand up on their hind legs.
The next step will ensure that your rabbit can easily stand up and get into the movements of actually give a high five.
Let Your Rabbit Place Their Paws On Your Hand
By now you should easily be able to get your rabbit to stand up while you give them a treat. You may even find that your bunny is standing up on their own whenever they see you but if you are having some trouble in getting them to stand this out.
Let your rabbit rest its paws on your hand, even though this is not exactly a high five but its can help your bunny get started with doing the movements of the trick.
Every time you give them a treat extend out your hand like a high five and see if the rabbit places it’s paws on your hand. If not then try moving in a bit closer and enticing them with a treat to stand up.
A rabbit is most likely to place their paws on your hand when they are standing up as it helps them balance their body and is a much more secure position for them to be in.
Once your rabbits is really comfortable in placing their paws on your hand then you can move on to the next step.
Try To Only Support One Of Their Paws
This is perhaps the most difficult step in teaching a rabbit to high five. By now your bunny should be able to easily rest its paws on your hands. Now to get them to just extend one of their paws, this is what you need to do.
Extend your palm out so that your rabbit can rest their paws on it as usual but drop one of their paws. Only let them rest one of their paws on your hand and eventually, they will get used to it and only try reaching out with one hand instead of two.
Although it sounds quite simple at first, trust me this part of the trick is going to take a few days but may even take a couple of weeks for your rabbit to get perfectly. After all, you are trying to teach them something that is completely different from their natural instinct.
There you have it, you have trained your pet rabbit to high five but it isn’t over yet. Move on to the next step and find out how you can improve on the trick.
Add Verbal & Hand Cues While Practicing
Till now we have been generous with the treats while training your rabbit to high five. But, that is not really healthy for them. Even though treats such as rabbit pellets or sweet as reward for giving a high five helps to re-enforce the trick in your rabbit’s mind.
Excess calories in a rabbit’s diet coming from treats can be a serious detriment to their health. Pet rabbits can easily get stomach problems like gas, stomach ache and even GI Stasis from overfeeding them treats. Bunny rabbits are also sustainable to getting obese if they keep getting excessive treats beyond what is allowed in a balanced diet.
The best way to cut down on the number of treats you need to give to your rabbit while teaching them to high five is with lots of verbal appreciation, petting and hand gestures that let them know that they are doing good.
Some people also go for clicker training but I find that plenty of verbal appreciation and petting can really help reduce the number of treats you need to give to a rabbit while teaching them how to high five if not completely replace them.
Repeat Everyday To Perfect It
The last and final step is to keep repeating every step that you have learned on how to teach a rabbit to high five every day or every other day.
Not only will this help you practice and perfect the trick with your rabbit, it will also help to condition your rabbit into learning new tricks that you may want to teach them in the future.
Remember the more time you spend each day playing, interacting and training your rabbit the more bonded your rabbit will become to you.
Faq On How To Teach A Rabbit To High Five
Here are some answers to the most asked questions on how to teach a rabbit to high five.
Can All Rabbits Learn To High Five?
Pretty much, any healthy rabbit should be able to learn tricks like giving a high five or coming to you when you call but that being said, some rabbits are naturally better at learning tricks than others.
For example, younger rabbits do better when you train them to high five than older rabbits. The breed of your rabbits may also come in consideraion, really bigh rabbits like Flemish Giant rabbits can have a harder time in learning skill that require complex movements simply due to their body weight.
But that being said, with plenty of treats and petting as motivation, most rabbits should be able to high five it you follow the steps in this post and have patience.
How Long Does It Take To Teach A Rabbit To High Five?
Normally it should take around a two to for weeks to teach a rabbit how to high five but it may take a big longer for some rabbits. It all depends on the rabbit’s age, breed and personality.
As long as you have enough patiente and follow the steps to teach a rabbit how to high five then even if it takes some time, your rabbit should eventually learn the trick.
Remember to also practice the trick from time to time otherwise your rabbit may forget some of the movements of the trick and you may have to being the training from the start.
My Rabbit Is Not Able To High Five Even After Training, What Should I Do?
All rabbits learn at a different pace, some rabbits are just faster at learning tricks like giving a high five.
Even though most rabbits should be able to learn simple tricks like giving a high five, some have a much easier time than others. There can multiple reasons for that including your rabbit’s age, breed, size etc.
But don’t be discouraged, be patient and keep at it. Follow the steps and eventually your rabbit should also be able to learn how to high five.
You can also consider teaching some other tricks first like spinning around or teaching your rabbit to come when you call. You may have an easier time teaching some other tricks first.
Whatever you do, never lose hope and best of luck.
