When cottage living was released I eagerly downloaded it. I saw the ads of rabbits running around, being held, being hugged, no cage in sight and I thought "yes! This is what I wanted, proper rabbit ownership representation in the sims!!". After downloading it I soon realized that you could not bring the rabbits inside. Nor could you move them with your household. I also quickly noticed that my young adult rabbit became an elderly very quickly. Idk if the short lifespan bothers me more or if the fact that rabbits with patterns only found in domesticated rabbits are labeled "wild" in the game bothers me more. I live in an area where domestic rabbits are abandoned outdoors all the time and many people think nothing of it because they think that they are wild.

So my question is, is anyone working on a mod to include rabbits as pets? I would do it myself but I know nothing about making mods lol. The cottage living pack is the closest thing to proper rabbit ownership in the sims that we have had but it is still not quite there.

I'm thinking that the ideal mod would have it where rabbits have the nearly the same needs as cats - they use a litterbox (preferably one retextured with rabbit safe litter), they need affection, they need food (for this it would be different from a cat in the way that hay and veggies would go into the litterbox instead of a food bowl and they constantly need hay in the litterbox, pellets could also be added but not needed lol), and they need to sleep. The main things that would differ from cat needs to rabbit needs is that rabbits are constantly pooping and eating so the "bowel" and "hunger" bars would be useless and also that rabbits do not "play" like cats do. I think good replacements for these bars would be "health" as rabbits are much more fragile than cats or dogs - if they do happen to go without pooping or eating for 8-12 hours that could be fatal and since monitoring that would be very difficult in game the bar would be very helpful (I suppose only if you could see it somehow as you could in mods like playable pets). The rabbit would need to be taken to the vet just as dogs or cats would. Another replacement could be "enrichment", something that could be kept up with rabbit chew toys, training, puzzle feeding pellets (if pellets are added), and dig boxes. The final bar could be "stress", this would be set off by things that they are not yet desensitized to; strangers, noises, vet visits, ect. If the stress goes down too much the health will as well. Ways you could avoid stressing out little bun bun is to either shield them from things that could cause stress or to slowly desensitize them to them. Earlier I mentioned training as an option to help with enrichment. Rabbits are very intelligent and food motivated pets. I train rabbits agility, obedience, and trick titles. I think a good thing that could be implemented whenever rabbits do get proper ownership representation in the sims would be to allow them to learn tricks just as the dogs do. The main thing that a dog does that would bring up issues with a rabbit is "speak" as rabbits do not vocalize like dogs do - they can scream, they can honk, they can squeak, ect. but they do not have any vocalizations that would really be ideal for a "speak". So the "speak" could be switched to "desensitize" and this would be something that you could start training right away. It would ideally have different things you could desensitize to but it wouldn't be the end of the world if "desensitize" was to desensitize to all stress triggers. Fetch could also bring issues with rabbits as their mouths are not as strong, I have however taught rabbits to pick up a -tiny tiny- stick, hold it, and give it back to me. I have also seen rabbits run at things when they were thrown. I have never attempted to teach fetch, I would assume it would be more difficult since they do not have a prey drive as dogs do but I wouldn't mark it as impossible. Good solutions for this would be to either replace the item for dogs into a tiny item for rabbits or to replace the trick all together. Some of my favorite tricks I have taught rabbits are kiss, backstall, and walk on hind legs (for a short distance), there are also many other options as well. I think the implication of training for rabbits isn't absolutely necessary but it would definetly be great representation and it would help show people that rabbits are not nearly as boring when they are taken care of well and that they are actually very smart animals.

It would also be very cool to implement rabbit behaviors such as binkying, zoomies, flops, periscoping, grooming, ect.

I would have no qualms with wild rabbits still existing. If so, it would actually be cool if their lifespan stayed the same as it is in game but their fur changed to wild markings. The domestic indoor free roam rabbits would live about as long as the large dog breeds. It would also be cool if rabbits could be made in CAS and different breeds existed (mainly meaning different sizes and fur lengths) although that might be something the actual sims creators would have to do lol.

Sorry, I am kind of dreaming out loud and this is starting to sound more like a checklist than a question lol. I think I wouldnt have any problems with cottage living if the wild rabbits actually looked wild but since they look domestic and the ad made it also look like they were pets it got my hopes up very high. Does anyone know if anyone is planning to make a mod where you could have pet rabbits free roam indoors, have longer lifespans, and move with your household?