ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Vet. Sci.
Sec. Animal Behavior and Welfare
This article is part of the Research TopicCognition and Emotions in Non-Human Animals: Neural mechanisms, behavioral advances, neurobiological assessment, and implications for animal welfareView all 8 articles
When Touch Is Stressful: Acute Endocrine and Behavioral Responses of Domestic Rabbits to Unfamiliar Human Handling
Provisionally accepted
- 1Ceska Zemedelska Univerzita v Praze Fakulta agrobiologie potravinovych a prirodnich zdroju, Prague, Czechia
- 2Univerzita Komenskeho v Bratislave Prirodovedecka fakulta, Bratislava, Slovakia
Select one of your emails
You have multiple emails registered with Frontiers:
Notify me on publication
Please enter your email address:
If you already have an account, please login
You don't have a Frontiers account ? You can register here
Rabbits are increasingly kept as companion animals, yet little is known about their stress responses during interactions with unfamiliar humans—situations commonly encountered during household visits or animal-assisted interventions. This study evaluated whether tactile interaction with an unfamiliar person induced acute stress in domestic rabbits using physiological (salivary corticosterone) and behavioral indicators (ear position, eye openness, and body posture). Seven adult, intact female dwarf rabbits were each exposed five times to a 10-minute stroking session while sitting on an unfamiliar person's lap, simulating a typical human–rabbit interaction. Salivary corticosterone was measured under control conditions (no stroking) and experimental conditions (20 minutes post-interaction), while behavior was recorded during the stroking period. Tactile interaction with an unfamiliar person resulted in a significant increase in corticosterone concentrations (mean +214.4 ± 74.1%, p = 0.031). Behaviorally, rabbits spent an average of 8.4 minutes in a tense posture, held their ears pressed back for 4.2 minutes, and kept their eyes partially or fully closed for 0.7 minutes. Tense posture in rabbits significantly correlated (r = 0.82; p = 0.03) with increased corticosterone levels; moreover, a tendency toward a correlation (p = 0.088) between ears pressed back and increased corticosterone levels was observed. These results indicate that handling by an unfamiliar person elicits acute stress responses in rabbits and should be considered when interacting with rabbits.
Keywords: Animal-human interaction, Behavioural observation, Corticosterone, rabbit, stress
Received: 22 Jan 2026; Accepted: 10 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Součková, Frühauf Kolářová, Pribylova, Kováčová and Zeman. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Lucie Pribylova
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.