So I've had this rabbit since it was 8 weeks old and he is now a year and 5 months… and he still wont use the litter box and I'm out of ideas and my husband is ready to give him the boot.
Please help!
I'm going to try to provide as much information as possible..
Pros: Tootsie is very energetic, active, alert, can be held well for short periods of time, good with the cat
Cons: Dominant, territorial, can be aggressive, wont use LB consistantly for pee or poops, chews cords and plastic, won't chew any provided toy, stubborn, very difficult to bond.
Additional info: Neutered at 2.5 months old, Dutch mix, 5lbs? (pretty small), can scale a 4ft x-pen (don't ask me how!), drinks 0.5-1.0 liter a day, would eat all day if I let him.
Okay, now here's the story.
Tootsie is driving me crazy and basically has been for a year.
Ever since we got him he has refused to consistantly use the litter box. We read so much about getting him fixed and how that would help so we did… and it didn't.. Actually, we never saw any good behavioral changes come out of that..
Tootsie will use the litter box 50% of the time- and with a rabbit who drinks up to a liter of water a day- I need this number to be 100%.
Right now he has a full size cat box with pine pellets (feline pine stuff)
I nearly never catch him in the act.
Tootsie will sometimes use the box, othertimes completely disregard it, and I've seen him a few times stand on the edge and go the opposite way! I swear he's doing it to drive me crazy.
Here's a list of what I've tried:
I've tried: Small corner boxes, large corner boxes, small cat boxes, medium cat boxes, huge cat boxes, and cardboard boxes of every shape and size.
I've tried: Pine pellet litter, pine shaving bedding, paper pellet litter, shredded paper, carefresh bedding, a box of just hay, the litter that is made up of those clay balls that the petstore sells that says it's supposed to attract rabbits and other small animals..
I've tried: Cleaning the cage as often as once a day to as little as once a week..
I tried: Using no cleaning agents, using small animal deoderizing wipes, using just water, and using vinegar.
I've tried: using pretty small cages to give him less space, using really large cages to give him more space
No big winners.
When Tootsie was about 5 months old we got another bunny friend (female Holland Lop) for him who he viciously barked at and tried to attack. It took about 3 weeks of living next to eachother and cage switching to get him to deal with her. Eventually he grew to love her.
She was an angel. Never had a single accident. I always feared Tootsie would ruin her good habits so I took extreme measures to keep the box clean.. 3 large litter boxes and only a very small area in the lower level of the cage that was free (3L x 2w x 3h C&C/NIC cage). Luckily he'd only pee downstairs so this made it much harder for him to make a mistake.. even though it would still happen occasionally.
Anyway, she died a little over a month ago which was devastating because like I said- this little girl was an angel.
Tootsie threw a big fit and then became really depressed- a once VERY active rabbit suddenly would rarely even get up and walk around. Wouldn't even come out of his cage for 5 days. Still ate like a pig though.
Well after 3 or so weeks, he started being more like himself, really active again and more playful with the cat.
Now he's basically back to normal.. at least from how he's acting.
While my husband has never been crazy about Tootsie, the little holland was his baby. Almost a week ago now, he got another one. She's 8 weeks and using the litter box fine (however she has peed on the bed 5 out of 6 times he's put her up there.. so we're confining her to floor time right now).
But yeah. Tootsie was furious about the new bunny. Tried to attack her through the cage several times. It's worse this time than it was the first, but I'm just going to give him time I guess.
(I'm sorry I'm all over the place, this is just really stressful)
So a few days ago I decided to try weaning Tootsie off having 3 little boxes.
It's not going well.
He has decided to only use the back 2 corners.
So like I said, 1/2 the time he'll use the box just fine, but the other half he'll use the other corner, so I'll wipe with with toilet paper and put it in the box and move the box to that corner.
So he'll use the other corner. and on and on and on.
I don't want to have the same problem I had with him and the other bunny and my husband is already building a really nice new huge cage for them.. so I don't know what to do.
Please I hope someone out there can help me.
(PS: Yes, I put hay in one side of the box- sometimes he'll sit in the box and eat, other times he'll sit outside the box and eat. Yes, he gets lots of playtime outside the cage and doesn't have accidents (except VERY VERY RARELY), Yes, I've tried blocking the corner (with a stool, boxes, food bowls, placemats, etc)- he either pees on them or just moves them out of the way, No.. I really don't think it's marking.. unless he marks 50% of the time with a huge amount of urine, Yes he will eat urine soaked hay.. it's disgusting and I have no idea why he does this)
Okay.. I can't think of anything else right now. All I can say at this point is that I'm truly very sorry for such a long and disorganized post.. But if you can't already tell- I'm really sick of this after almost a year and a half.
Please help me.
Although it may not seem like it- I love this rabbit. He's my little boy and I need to get him to have better LB behaviors or he wont be able to move into the large cage with the litle girl once he gets use to her.
HELP!