Hello Fellow Bunny Lovers!
My name is Jamie. I have an adorable 16mo old male rabbit named Bailey. He is the cutest! He’s a friendly little guy who loves to get kisses. He’s almost perfect, except for one thing – we (my fiance and I) have been having major issues with him having little accidents on our carpet! We have tried everything we can think of to steer him away from this whole strip of carpet that he seems determined to mark his territory at, but we’ve had no luck. I don’t mind the poop pellets here and there, that’s not an issue, but he has been peeing on our carpet.
Some of the things we have tried:
– Blocking it off – we have tried to restrict his access to this area but he will get as close as he can to this area and pee.
– Placing litter boxes there – he has no problem peeing in his litter box in his cage, however the moment we let him out he will not use it. I have tried getting him a new litter box outside of the cage and he has no interest in it. I have even taken the dirty one with his scent out of his cage and placed it on this strip of carpet and he will go all around it but not in it.
– Putting hay/treats in the litter box to encourage him to use it – again, no interest. He LOVES hay when he’s in his cage but doesn’t care for it at all if it’s anywhere else.
– I have completely scrubbed and cleaned this strip of carpet and washed everything close to it to try to remove his scent, but to no avail.
– Putting a towel down – He will dig at the towel and move it until the carpet is revealed and then do his business.
– I’ve even tried using a “pet-off” spray in the area and he is not affected by it at all.
We are not sure what to do anymore at this point. We live in a fairly large two bedroom apartment on the second floor, and we give him access to the entire living room area, kitchen, and hallway when we’re home. Right now in the summer it is extremely hot outside – we live in a desert so it is well over 100 degrees during the day. We were taking him to the park every once in a while so he could get some fresh air and he could have access to grassy areas, but unfortunately it is just too hot out for him. However we have been having this issue for over 5 months now. It kind of randomly started up – he was doing perfectly fine before this, no accidents. We have had him since he was only a couple of months old, and we did get him neutered when he was about 6 months old so we’re not sure why he’s acting up. We do have two cats and so we assume he is just marking his territory, but it’s to a point where every day I have to scrub and clean our carpet in the spots he peed in. I love him so much, but if this issue continues, we are going to have to re-home him, which I really don’t want to do! So we are turning to you guys in the hopes somebody might have a solution that will work for him! Any help and advice is greatly appreciated, thank you!