Your rabbit can't see the treat under its nose

Hold a piece of parsley right in front of your rabbit's face and watch it fumble. Not because it's clumsy — because that exact spot is invisible.

Rabbit eyes sit high on the sides of the skull, giving a field of view close to all the way around. Brilliant for spotting a buzzard. The cost is a blind area directly in front of the nose and under the chin, and a narrow band of overlap where the two eyes meet, which is where depth perception lives.

So a rabbit finds food the way it finds everything close up: with whiskers and nose. Those long vibrissae are roughly as wide as the body and map the world the eyes can't reach. The constant nose-twitching isn't just cuteness, it's resolution.

Two things follow for daily life. Offer treats slightly to the side of the nose rather than dead centre, and let them sniff first. And never reach straight down from above — that's the one direction a prey animal is wired to read as a diving predator. Approach at their level, from the side, hand low and visible.

It also explains the startle when you pick them up from behind: you were in the one place they couldn't check.

If your rabbit starts bumping into things, tilting its head or developing a cloudy eye, that's a vet visit — ideally one experienced with rabbits.