Hi,

Sassy and Scooter are bonded.  My Scooter bunny has been peeing and leaving poops all over.  I was pretty sure it’s behavioral, because it started after we re-arranged our living room.  Shortly after that, we put up the Christmas tree.  Then a few weeks later, we took the Christmas tree down.  So I think with all the changes in his territory, Scooter felt uncertain, or felt the need to re-claim “his” territory.

 I did take Scooter to the vet.  She did a urinalysis, and checked for stones/crystals/sludge, and he got a clean bill of health.

I clean up his pee with a vinegar solution as soon as possible.  He doesn’t just pee in a couple of favorite spots…it’s just kind of random different spots, so I can’t just put another litterbox where he’s peeing, or I’d need a couple dozen boxes!

Other background info:  [Short summary:  a lot of different factors may each be having a small effect, but added together are having a large effect on Scooter’s worsening litterbox habits — if you want to skip to the bottom for my question, and skip the in-depth analysis, that’s okay.]

The bunny set-up is that they have an entire bedroom as their “enclosed space” for at night, and when we are gone.  When we are home, I open the gate and they have access to their room and the living room where we are hanging out.  It’s not just an issue of being too lazy to return to their room to use the litterbox, because Scooter pees in their room, too.

Scooter might be marking “food areas” (although some areas have no food associations for him).  I used to give the bunnies a pellet when they jumped into my lap, but after Scooter peed in my lap a few times, I stopped doing that.  He still visits my lap, but hasn’t peed in it since I stopped the pellet bribes.  I also used to give them their supper in the living room, but now I give it to them near their litterbox.  I also stopped giving treats anywhere except by their litterbox.  That has reduced the living room poops, but not the pee.

I’ve had Sassy since July, and got Scooter in October.  She (Sassy) tried to be dominant.  Scooter insisted on being equals (he didn’t try to dominate, but definitely didn’t want to be submissive, either).  Their bonding proceeded fairly smoothly, and they’ve seemed to be BFFs.  Lately I’ve noticed occasional dominant behavior from Sassy again.  She’s not hurting or nipping Scooter, but sometimes chasing him, trying to mount him, or possibly trying to lay across his shoulders like I’ve read dominant bunnies like to do.  Scooter just takes a few hops away from her when she tries that, and Sassy doesn’t make another immediate attempt.  They do still cuddle & groom each other often.  Maybe Scooter’s peeing is partially in response to Sassy’s domination attempts?

When I adopted Scooter, his foster mom thought that in his previous home, Scooter may not have a litterbox, maybe just a towel lining the bottom of his cage.  She told me that she got him to poop and pee in his litterbox, but no matter what set-up she tried, he also liked to pee on a towel right next to his litterbox.  Upon bringing him to our place, I found that to be true (excpet for the territorial poops when he was first exploring his new terriroty, and poops from both he and Sassy during the bonding process, both of which dramatically died down after bonding was completed).  I even tried putting the litterbox in another box, but Scooter would still pee outside the big box, so we just accommodated that, and put the litterbox and a small towel on a shallow tray, and except for peeing on that towel, Scooter hasn’t had pee accidents anywhere else until these recent problems.  If there is no towel, he will just pee on the floor next to the litterbox. There would be occasional poops stray poops from each of them — maybe one or two a day, no big deal, fairly typical.  But now I’m picking up a dozen or so poops (mostly Scooter’s except maybe one or two), some random and some in piles, and cleaning between one to four pee spots a day (all Scooter’s) in the living room and the bunny room.

I clean the litterboxes every day or every day and half, and leave a bit of the old stuff in there so they can recognize their box, so I don’t think it’s problem with the litterbox being too dirty or too clean for his preference.

Scooter obviously needs some remedial litterbox training, so he doesn’t see the world as his litterbox.  I’ve read that I need to keep him in a small area, so he recognizes it as his “home base,” and gradually re-allow access to larger areas once he has mastered using the litterbox in the small space.  I should also watch him carefully, and if lifts his tail as though he’s going to pee, stop him and bring him to the litterbox.   My question is, should I confine Sassy with him, even though her litterbox habits are great, or should she still have normal access to all areas except the Scooter litterbox area, and they can just sniff each other through the prison bars?

Sorry this got so long!