My female rabbit is territorial, in a bad way-

[pocketable]

I adopted a female rabbit about eight months ago to bond with my male. Both are house rabbits, and both are fixed. I knew that females are more likely to be territorial, but I thought since she was fixed, she would not display as much aggression.

The issue is that she really, really hates my cats. At first, she would just grunt and chase them out of “her” room, where the hay, litterboxes, etc are kept. I could understand her being upset about the cats coming into “her” space, and she was not as persistent about keeping them out. Recently, however, she has begun grunting and chasing them while out in other areas of the house, even going so far as to chase them out of the cat bed while they are sleeping. They got good at avoiding her when she only showed aggression to them coming into “her” room, but now that she is acting this way towards them in other areas of the house, they are finding it hard to escape her. They do nothing to provoke her, no swatting, hissing, biting, etc.

Because I do not feel it is fair to them (or her) to be under stress, I have been considering rehoming her. Is there an alternate solution? I am going to buy a taller pet gate and try sectioning the rabbits off into their own room, but I am not sure how well my male will take to the idea as he has had free roam of the house beginning at a very young age and may become stressed being confined. Would it be best for me to rehome her? If so, should I rehome my male with her since they are bonded? I would feel very sad doing so, he is sweet and gets along with everyone just fine. I worry that finding them a suitable home will ve very difficult, because they are accustomed to the house rabbit lifestyle and because my male is a giant breed.

[Sarita]

If they are bonded it would be awful to break the bond for both rabbits and totally unfair to them.

I think the pet gate is a good idea as long as the cats cannot get in the room. Sometimes different species just don’t bond because they don’t “speak” the same language. It’s hard to know what provokes her since it can be difficult to see things the way our rabbits see them. Usually this type of behavior is fear aggression even though you may see it as just aggression.

[pocketable]

Posted By Sarita on 05/21/2013 01:35 PM
If they are bonded it would be awful to break the bond for both rabbits and totally unfair to them.

I think the pet gate is a good idea as long as the cats cannot get in the room. Sometimes different species just don’t bond because they don’t “speak” the same language. It’s hard to know what provokes her since it can be difficult to see things the way our rabbits see them. Usually this type of behavior is fear aggression even though you may see it as just aggression.

Theoretically, they shouldn’t have any reason to want to go in there once the gate is up. Hopefully my male won’t be able to clear a taller gate, he can jump pretty high when he feels like it. Yes, I was worried about it being related to fear. It just seems unusual to me, especially since she approaches them when they are literally no where near her just so she can grunt and chase them away. For instance, she came out of “her” room last night and into the living room just so she could chase one of them out of the cat bed, then went right back to lounging.

I wish they would get along! It is quite unfortunate. My male loves my female cat, he runs little circles around her and plays with her outside (under my supervision, of course). Sometimes they cuddle and groom each other.

[jerseygirl]

It might be that your male bun likes them that is an issue for her. Perhaps she’s territorial about him?

That she’s is seeking them out made me think 2 things…

1) it might be a form of play for her =\ or she just needs to make it known she’s top of the heiracy in the household. Would you say she has most dominant personality of all your pets or just in this scenario?

2) Aggression can sometimes be outward sign of a health issue. It might be like some sort of “displacement behaviour”.

While your male rabbit enjoys free roam, I’m wondering if a lot of space for her actually increases anxiety??
The baby gate would certainly be worth a try and if the pair aren’t “joint at the hip”, could you allow the male to come out into other spaces from time to time?

[jerseygirl]

If you felt that isolates her too much, you could try a pen in the main living area for her to be in sometimes. You often see 2 rabbits that don’t get along will sit side by side on each side of a pen. Maybe she could interact with your cats this way for a while. Of course you’d need to set it up so your cats can’t get into the pen.

One other question; did she come to you already spayed?

[pocketable]

 I suppose she could possibly be territorial of my male rabbit, however, I don’t see why she would be harassing my cats when they are not near him. They just seem to irritate her for some reason, I can’t really pinpoint why. I’ve been trying to watch her body language to see if that would give any clues. Generally speaking, she seems pretty relaxed. The only real sign of distress is that she lays her ears back, but she only does it when she is actually confronting the cat in question, never before or after. Her breathing doesn’t speed up, and she is willing to go right back to lounging so she doesn’t really seem overly stressed. I am just not sure!

Maybe it is the space. I am going to give the baby gate a shot, though I am not sure if she would like being confined while my male can roam. They don’t spend all of their time together, but she does enjoy grooming him and I think separation would just make her more jealous, if that is the issue.

As far as dominance goes, I would definitely say she is the most dominant of my animals. I know she at least thinks she is the boss when it comes to my male; she is often inclined to mount him when she is excited (for example, before veggie time) and regularly attempts to demand grooming sessions from him. I think he is secretly the boss, however, since she ends up doing more grooming than he does. My cats are not as dominating, at least from my perspective. They have their own hierarchy amongst themselves, but I don’t really see it translated towards the rabbits.

She did have restricted access when I first brought her home, for maybe a month or so, and the cats didn’t seem to bother her then. Of course, she was just becoming acclimated to her new home.

 

Yes, she was spayed before I adopted her. Or rather, her paperwork from the shelter says she was spayed. I don’t know much about her past. I think they found her outside, but I could be wrong about that. She’s really sweet aside from hating the cats and acts more like a “normal” rabbit than my male does (sometimes I think he thinks he is a cat). She’s very responsive to her name, it’s cute.

[pocketable]

 Oh, as for play- I don’t think she is playing. I watched her with one of my cats today. She’ll hop up and grunt, putting her ears back when she makes the sound, and she kind of shoves her face at them. In this instance, the cat just ignored her (my female cat doesn’t really take the hint half the time), so she did a little hop and pushed her with her front feet, in a way that I would say is “boxing.” The cat leaves, she just goes back to whatever she was doing, in this case lounging on the floor fully outstretched.

She doesn’t always react this way, either. Sometimes the cats can get away with walking by without getting bothered, too, and like I said, she never appears stressed before or after, only during her attack.

[jerseygirl]

Reason I asked about spay is there has been some cases if owners finding out the shelters vet only does removal of ovaries. Not full hysterectomy. It might be worth contacting the shelter to clarify.

Is she shedding at all? Sometimes they get really grumpy when shedding.

Is it any one cat in particular she has issue with?

[pocketable]

 Yeah, you know, I have wondered about that. Maybe I will give them a call. It wouldn’t surprise me at all, really. The shelter I adopted her from, like most shelters, is mostly cats and dogs, and it is also a pretty small one.

She is shedding a bit, but she is grumpy when she isn’t shedding as well. Although, she does seem to be shedding more recently and has been a bit more grumpy than usual, so perhaps that is it.

I think she detests them both equally, though I am inclined to say that maybe she hates my male cat more than my female. He is better about getting out of her way as soon as he sees her, but she seems to go more out of her way to bother him in return. My female cat is a little “different” (I believe it has to do with being separated from her mother at a young age and then growing up in a shelter) and doesn’t really react to my rabbit’s warnings, nor does she bother to stay out of the way, she just kind of acts like the rabbit isn’t there either way and only moves if the rabbit is a little more aggressive. She is also more likely to get away with walking past without getting grunted at. But as far as I can tell, neither of them do anything to provoke her in any way.

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