So over the winter, I've achieved around a 90% success rate for rooting cuttings. I got some nice cuttings of Red Lebanese Bekaa Valley and thought nothing of it. Well first batch not one rooted. So I go and order another batch. Another month and a half later, same results as the first batch. Then I see a BARE ROOT tree on eBay. I couldn't click buy it now fast enough. I thought to myself finally I've got this tree I've tried so hard to get. It shot some new leaves out and was looking really good. That's when the unthinkable happened while I was at work. At some point one of my two Labradors climbed over my 4 ft rabbit fencing and chewed the top 1/3 off the tree. I thought it would come back but to my dismay it looks like it's a goner. I give up!!! The fig gods don't want me to have it. Anyone else have a unicorn(one that you can't quite get)?

Red Lebanese, Vasilika Sika and some others seem to be more difficult.

They push leaves then die without roots forming.

I have tried twice with each type and do not have a successful plant growing.

I-258, Fico Preto, Black Madeira, Haitive d' Argentuiel are also harder. Usually starting with smaller/thinner roots.

Others like Naples Dark etc., root like they would grow into concrete.

Mike

If I show you what the rabbits chewed just this winter, you might feel much better in that you lost 1x3 of the same variety. I just lost over 12 different ones this winter alone.
I never lose any sleep over losing a tree. I just think of it as fate and if I want it bad enough, I would keep trying.
Unfortunately I don't have this one to help out:)

Geez... pet rabbits or rabbits a pellet gun would take care of?

I think it's a combination of mice and wild rabbits. I thought that I no longer had that problem. These were two and three year old trees and had no protection.

They chew through the roots or trunk?

They gnaw around the base in a full circle. If they succeed, the tree would most likely die within weeks from drying out unless new growth emerges from beneath the soil.
Some varieties, especially the ones that have a single trunk as opposed to multi trunk growth habit would have a very difficult time recovering.
If you catch this damage early enough you might try to start an airlayer, but it's a huge setback when you're dealing with a two or three year old tree.

Makes me sick thinking about it.

Some observations and a question . . . .

In December, I acquired two nice cuttings of Red Lebanese Bekaa in a trade.  One rooted almost immediately -- 2-3 weeks, the other took much longer -- 7-8 weeks.  But buds did not break until roots formed, so except for the delay I'd considered these two sticks well behaved.

In Jan, I bought 5 cuttings of Vasilika Sika vs.  As Mike observed, all five quickly pushed a leaf or two without roots.  After ~4-5 weeks, I got weak roots on two of the sticks.  After 6 weeks, the other 3 still have a small leaf or two but no roots.

Between last winter and this one, I've rooted roughly 30 varieties, including a range of well-known cold-hardy, early varieties suitable for the north as also a handful of more tender, late but tasty varieties better suited here to pots.  My overall success rate is probably ~85-90%, which I attribute to species.  But I've never been shut out.

What has happened to me frequently is that 1-2 cuttings of a variety root quickly (<3 weeks) while 1-3 other cuttings of the same variety root slowly (6+ weeks).  This happened to me at least 5 times this year, all but one (the Red Lebanese, discussed above) involving sticks taken at the same time from the same trees under the same conditions.  Note that the "slow" cutting is not necessarily less vigorous; it usually manages to catch up quite quickly.

So this leads me to wonder whether some characteristic of the stick, rather than the variety, dominates performance of the cutting.  For example, do cuttings taken from "leaders" (vertically-growing tips) perform differently than cuttings taken from "laterals."  We know that leaders and laterals have different concentrations of key hormones during the growing season.  Do these hormones persist in dormancy and impact the performance of the cuttings?  Or is something else similar at play?

I also wonder whether starting the cutting in light encourages early emergence of leaves.

Well, this may or may not be the case with Red Lebanese. I have found that pretty much for me, cuttings that are taken in the fall near leaf drop are weak and struggle to grow. Cuttings taken closer to spring are always much stronger and seemingly can't wait to grow.
So, just wondering if you bought those cuttings in the fall, or if they were harvested in the fall and stored? I know that many cuttings that come from trees that are planted outdoors in marginal zones are at risk of freeze damage every winter; so cuttings almost have to be taken in the fall to guarantee any sort of viability. But it is a factor.

Calvin --

You make a great point.  I had figured that dormant is dormant, so timing didn't matter much.  Unfortunately, I haven't started any cuttings on wood taken after January, so I don't have much data.  But here're some possibly relevant observations:  

1.  My four cuttings were taken from one potted LSU Improved Celeste in early December.  All rooted very quickly.
2.  The two cuttings of Red Lebanese were acquired in early Dec.  One rooted quickly, one slowly.
3.  A bunch of cuttings taken from potted plants in storage in mid-Dec showed mixed results.  But if I could make some generalizations: 
         (a) There was 100% success with sticks taken from early varieties (e.g., Florea, as well as the IC) or mid-season varieties (e.g., Nordland, Norella, St Rita).
         (b) But there was only ~50% success with sticks taken from late or late-mid varieties (e.g., LaRadek's EBT, Sumacki, JH Adriatic, Smith).  

My tentative hypothesis is that (a) cuttings work better if the wood is (or has been) fully dormant; and (b) early/mid-season varieties are more fully dormant when I've taken cuttings in December.  

Consistent with this thought, most of the varieties characterized above as difficult to root (e.g., Vasilika Sika, I-258, Fico Preto, Black Madeira) are late.

Can others make sense of their results this way?