well, i’m the owner & i definitely don’t think it’s cute!  although i am trying to keep a happy face on whilst doing a lot of ‘spot’ cleaning… lol.  i was taping the animals because i thought it was going to be cute playing that was happening and was surprised to see the pee rolling down the dog’s back.  thats why the clip is so sort.  had to run to clean up… hence the reason for my posting here with litter training questions.  50% of the time the dog & rabbit spend together is cuddling / napping and the other 50% is the rabbit using the dog as a jungle gym.  i think she’s in love.  so maybe its less of a litter problem and more of a question of how much can the 2 of them be friends & cuddle buddies?  its so sweet to see them napping together but maybe its not okay to let happen so much?  i’m a little confused  and just want to take the best care of them as possible.  wouldn’t mind a little less pee-soaked laundry & spot cleaning too, but again, i realize that her hormones dictate that some of this is inevidable. 

lol… no prob knowltons4!  i’m not surprised there was confusion since i blurted out so much info.  that indicates pretty well the level of confusion going on in my head over what to try to do.  lol.  i can imagine you know better than me about cleaning up pee with edson’s water consumption!  any new discoveries?  i read in a thread somewhere that you were lookng into seeing if there was a relation to his thirst & the amount of pellets he was eating. (too lazy to find the thread so i’ll just ask here )

interesting question beka… i wonder if hormones drop with rabbit age?  that would be a nice reprieve for baby… and the poor dog too!

scarlet_rose, the old schedule was just that she stayed in her room all the time & the dog & i visited her to keep her company.  i used to read the paper & do the crossword in her room, as well as have little head-pet sessions with her through out the day – all me going into her room because she wouldn’t come out.  she was alway quite comfy zooming around in her room & very occasionally she’d trot down the hall but always run right back to her room.  i have a curtain thing blocking the dog off from going into her room & eating her food, and she can run underneath it. 

the new schedule has developed into her running back & forth between the living room & her room while i’m home.  i had to start putting a baby gate up blocking off the fromt part of the house (living room thats not rabbit proofed) over night or when i was out because she’s so happy to spend time there.  this means that she can only run from her room to the kitchen which is rabbit proofed & vinyl floor.

i knew i needed a litter in the living room & had started out by soaking up any pee on a paper towel & putting it & any poops in the living room litter.  then i progressed to making that NIC enclosure thinking that i needed to enclose her to limit her roaming until she got used to using the litter.  now she has been using the litter but just not exclusively like she does in her bedroom.   hmm… so maybe i need to confine her to her room over night & during my work time, and give her supervised ‘running’ time when she can go back & forth & i can try to catch her ‘in the act’ to put her in her litter.

hadn’t thought about jealousy issues with the dog.  interesting.  i just assumed that wasn’t a prob since he’s always been around & outside her room.  he sleeps in the hall by my bedroom door & hers, and if i woke up in the mddle of the night they’d be lying next to eachother, but she never peed on him then.

you know sarita… i think you’re right about that.  aside from peeing directly ON him, she has peed all over his beds and my living room area rug and it would make sense to think its because she’s marking what smells like the dog. 

my new plan is this… since she’s only in the living room rug when i’m there to supervise i will continue to put pee soaked paper towels in her litter there & clean the spot well with soapy vinegar water.  i’ve managed to catch her a couple of time while peeing to put her in her litter & will keep this up too.  i’m leaving her small living room enclosure as-is and only putting her in lock-down there for short periods of time during the day when i’m in & out briefly and not there to supervise (like when i have to take the dog out for potty). 

but also i am discouraging all of her attempts to climb on the dog and not allowing them any time together unsupervised.  if she approaches him but keeps all four on the floor i leave it alone, but as soon as i see her front paws on him i say loudly ‘baby no!’  if she doesn’t respond to this (surprisingly she does mostly) i have a water bottle to use or just get over there to break it up.  i went out to my mom’s for dinner last night & baby gated her in her room separate from the dog, which is what i’ll do from now on over night too instead of just baby gating off the living room.  i think this strategy will work, except i’m fairly certain the living room rug will always be a target.

thanks so much for your responses!  it feels good to have a plan of action.  we had settled into normalcy before her surgery but her behaviour has changed so much since then that i wasn’t sure what to do with it!  if anyone has more insight, i welcome it as nothing is written in stone.

yeah she’s pretty merciless with poor bogart now… lol.  he’ll shoot me a look every so often that seems like he’s saying ‘do i really have to put up with this?’  so i think he’ll be happy with the no climbing rule. 

i’m also perplexed at how much she has changed since her operation.  considering that her behaviour was the same from when she was wee to about 5 1/2 or 6 yrs old (before the mass even started) and then right up til her surgery.  the only thing i can figure is that taking on trips to the vet, plus fixing her sore, helped her bond to me & thus be more trusting in general?  i’ll def check this out at the next vet visit.