I adopted a 2-year-old Holland lop two months ago from a devoted family who was getting ready to move and couldn't bring the rabbit with them. I've never owned a rabbit before but as I have lots of experience with other pets I didn't think it would be an issue. The previous owners told me that the bunny would let them pet her if they were giving her food, but otherwise didn't really care for being touched and never liked being held. (I read online that this is a little uncommon but not that strange for a rabbit.)
Since then, I've made wonderful progress with the rabbit. She enjoys the other animals in the house (she especially likes chasing the cats around) and likes to hop up on the couch with us while we watch tv. She's okay with us petting her as long as she sees us coming and she seems to enjoy having her head rubbed. But she is still definitely not okay with us holding her.
Is there any kind of training I can do to make her less fearful and eventually maybe let us hold her? It's not like we want to cuddle with her all the time -- we would be able to give her free roam of more areas of the house if we had at least the option of picking her up to relocate her out of unsafe areas. Also I made her a harness but because she hates the idea of us picking her up, I can't put it on her so there's no chance of her going in the backyard with us.