So, I built the boys an x-pen cage a little over a week ago now, and I put another set of NIC panes between the two halves of the pen so they’d (a) be living in closer quarters and (b) I’d be able to do the side-switching thing that I could do with their cages (Perry’s cage was much too small for Humphrey.) All went well for the first two days, and I was surprised and pleased to see that even with the much larger holes they didn’t try to bite each other. In fact, they began lying down beside each other much more often and everything seemed to be going fine.

Two days later I switched sides on them and seeing that neither of them were terribly upset I left the house to go help my mom pack her classroom for the summer.

I returned two hours later to find a fur explosion all over the place– one of the little brats (probably Humphrey because he’s so strong) knocked over the divider and apparently they had a fight– but luckily all they must have done was tug fur out, because by the time I got back they were just sitting on their original sides looking bored and I checked them all over for injuries and they were both fine. I better secured the divider and placed them back on the sides I had switched them to (I didn’t want Humphrey to learn that destruction got him what he wanted) and they were totally fine. I’m really lucky they didn’t kill each other, so I guess that’s a good sign for their long-term success…

Anyway, I waited until they were lying near each other again before I resumed bonding sessions, and today’s went better that usual, so we’re definitely making progress! Yaaaay! Do you guys think maybe I shouldn’t be so quick to break up possilbe fights from now on or what? Maybe they need to “duke it out” a little.

Also, and on a not unrelated to their bonding but so I don’t have to flood the boards with threads, I noticed a cut on Perry’s side today while he was runnign around downstairs– I had to move his fur to see it and he’s acting totally normal (he was binkying and everything), but I don’t know where he got it (I suspect I may have scared him this morning when I was vaccuuming and he might have jumped into one of the zip-ties holding the X-pen together, but I assumed he was acting shaky because he was terrified, not hurt) and I’m wondering if I should drag him to the emergency vet tomorrow or wait until the real vet opens Monday, and if there’s anything I should put on it in the meantime.

He seems totally fine and it’s a pretty little cut (more like a puncture, actually), but it still worries me to see him hurt and he is missing a chunk of fur around the wound. It wasn’t bleeding or crusty or infected looking when I found it, but I’m going to keep watching it no matter what. Poor little bun!