One thing that has worked for me is putting a physical barrier over the sprouts. I turn wire planters over them, or anything I can find that they still get sun, but the rabbits can't get to them. Sometimes I find small balls of old barbed wire fence at resale stores, and put them around the dahlia bed. Bunnies stay away from them. You could even make some protection from chicken wire or similar material, and secure around the sprouts. Those little rabbits can be so annoying!

once they are bigger, the rabbits leave them alone, its one of the reasons I pre start mine inside in pots. - and yes yours will most likely continue to grow.

Luckily, my neighbor uses the bb gun method, so I don't have a lot of trouble form them.

Thanks for the tips! I'll try the wire planters first and see how that goes - I have small children that like to get into everything (and I am not exactly graceful), so barbed wire seems like an accident waiting to happen.

I've seen bunnies in the neighbor's hedge in previous years, but this is my third year of gardening here and this is the first time they've bothered my plants. I have so many other delicious weeds they could eat, why would they choose my poor dahlias?

Just a follow-up...

I used a hanging basket to cover up the plant, but within a few days it grew enough that the rabbit could - and did - nibble the leaves. So I mixed up some chili powder and garlic powder in water and dribbled it (it will clog a spray bottle, so don't even try it) all over the flower bed. It worked! Now even the tender young sprouts are left alone. We've had several major downpours since I sprayed a few weeks ago, and it seems to still be effective. My neighbor was just complaining about the bunny eating his broccoli crop, so maybe it just found something better to eat! Either way, my dahlias are finally able to grow. Thanks, y'all!

we have multiple cute little (and not so little) bunnies in our yard, they love to come and eat the grass and flowers in our grass I guess. I noticed a groundhog munching something in the bed and that afternoon I went to Lowe's and got some of their fencing to put around the bed where the rabbits can easily access from the forest. Lowe's has cheap cute white rounded top wire fencing, 3x18 feet for $4 and also they have the picket fencing wrapped in a ball for $20 (I think it's 3x30 or something like that). we have deer, rabbits, groundhogs, I don't know what they want to eat but I figure better safe than sorry. I know the deer can just step over if they really wanted to, but there's a lot to eat in the forest for them, so we haven't seen them in the yard in a while--but the bunnies and groundhogs are out there every day!

Also I have heard that Deer Off works for rabbits, it smells rank (has rancid eggs in it), you can make your own at home, just google for it but supposedly it works...you have to reapply after a particularly hard rain.