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Understanding the origins of the multiaxial material properties of soft tissues is crucial for quantifying the tissue material properties that govern the material behavior for accurate predictive modeling of biological systems. The purpose of this study is to quantify the shear material properties of the rabbit patellar tendon. These properties will be examined under different shear strain rates along the fiber direction and perpendicular to the fiber direction. Thin sections of patellar tendon were resected from mature male white New Zealand rabbits and were mounted on a custom-designed testing device, quickly followed by application of predetermined simple shear strains under physiological conditions. The tendons were sequentially sheared to 40% strain at strain rates of 0.1%, 1%, and 10% strain s-1 using a device driven by a computer-controlled stepper motor. The results suggest that the tendon exhibits direction-dependent viscoelastic shear properties, reflecting the structural anisotropy. These results can be used to generate stress state dependent constitutive models.