in the middle of bonding- unsure what to do next?

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BINKYBUNNY FORUMS

This topic has 14sd replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 10 years, 9 months ago by KW BunnyMystic.

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- 12/17/2013 at 9:15 AM
  Sharma
  Participant
  5 posts
  Hi everyone,
  
  Long time reader, first time poster. I’ll try to be brief.
  
  I adopted a female holland lop about a month and a half ago to bond to my male holland lop. Roughly the same age. I’ve followed all of the various bonding advice to a T (neutral space, starting out with small sessions getting longer, cages together so they can smell each other, switching cages and items, etc etc.) Bonding sessions happen almost every day in a slow, steady manner. Most effective has been different kinds of stress bonding.
  
  Without going into excruciating detail, my issue is this: the new female bunny has a biting issue and has a strong personality. She came from a shelter and uses little nips as a way to get attention (such as tugging at your pant leg). The issue I have when I bond them is they are totally comfortable together and groom in each others presence, etc. However, when the two have a face to face meet, my male will stick his head out in a peace offering and she almost ALWAYS nips him. Not in a rough grooming way. At the beginning, he’d fight back and I’d have to break it up. Increasingly, it seems that he is getting used to it and won’t fight back and will just try and re-present his head to her. He seems to be getting more okay with it but it’s rough because I’m not seeing any signs of affection or grooming. She’s very defensive of that kind of interaction even though she’s comfortable in all others way. Whenever she bites, I try and break the behavior with a squirt from the squirt bottle and a verbal reinforcement. It’s also frustrating because it’s not consistent- some days she’ll be more comfortable around him and not bite him. Others it happens right away and sets a bad tone for the session.
  
  So, any thoughts on that? Anyone ever have either one rabbit with a very strong personality or who likes to nip? It’s frustrating because I’m not sure if this is a hump to get over or if it’s a permanent issue that’s not going to go away. As I said, no grooming or physical affection signs yet.
  
  THANKS FOR YOUR HELP!!!!
- 12/17/2013 at 11:51 AM
  LBJ10
  Moderator
  17028 posts
  If he is presenting himself to be groomed then that means he is trying to get the upper hand in their relationship. The bunny “demanding” to be groomed is the one who is dominant. It sounds like your girl isn’t wanting to accept that. LOL
  
  Is she actually hurting him when she nips? Some bunnies are just bossy and use nipping as a way to get what they want.
- 12/17/2013 at 12:11 PM
  Zombie-Sue
  Participant
  875 posts
  yeah, what LBJ said lol. This stuff is pretty normal. I know it’s hard to watch, but this needs to happen so they can sort out who is in charge. As long as no real damage is being done, it’s not as bad as you think it is.
- 12/17/2013 at 12:16 PM
  Sharma
  Participant
  5 posts
  Thank you so much for the responses. I truly appreciate it!
  
  I thought it might be a dominance issue. There’s no real harm being done to the nipee. My concern is just having the same thing happen over and over session after session. But in your experiences this will resolve itself?
  
  And if I can follow up, how does humping/mounting factor into this? The male, who is demanding to be groomed, every few sessions will get the urge to try. I usually stop him. If I let him do it, will that help in sorting the dominance issue out?
- 12/17/2013 at 2:51 PM
  Annabel93
  Participant
  161 posts
  I have 3 bunnies and one of them (the smallest – I think he has small man syndrome) often nips the other 2 to show them he’s the man. It seems to be if they’re in his way or doing something he doesn’t approve of. I think it’s like a pecking order, it shouldn’t really have an impact on the submissive one other than helping to establish a hierarchy, even if it does seem a little mean.
- 12/17/2013 at 6:13 PM
  Zombie-Sue
  Participant
  875 posts
  Yes, let him hump her at least for a little while. That way he’ll feel like he made his point.
- 12/17/2013 at 7:37 PM
  tanlover14
  Participant
  3617 posts
  You should allow a few seconds of humping BUT as soon as you see the bottom bun getting annoyed or flustered about it, lightly push the other bun off. Don’t immediately do it though – wait until she begins to show signs of being annoyed and angry.
  
  I have a bonded quintet and the last one I added to the group has a TERRIBLE habit of nipping everyone to get her way. It actually drives me absolutely insane that she does it but it’s a bunny thing and that’s just how she interacts with the others. All the buns are used to it now and don’t fight with her about it so I wouldn’t worry unless it’s REALLY hindering them moving forward. It doesn’t sound like it is though especially if your other bun is beginning to not get so upset about it. It can definitely take some time for them to work the kinks out but it will happen!
- 12/17/2013 at 11:51 PM
  LBJ10
  Moderator
  17028 posts
  Like the others said, they need to be allowed to work things out on their own. A lot of times things look worse than they actually are. Only intervene if someone is getting annoyed/angry/distressed by what the other is doing. Nipping and humping are okay as long as nobody is getting hurt.
- 01/02/2014 at 4:27 PM
  Sharma
  Participant
  5 posts
  Thanks again for the help everyone. A few weeks later, not much has changed. The new female bun is still very nippy. If she’s in a good mood, she’ll approach our old bun and give him a less harsh one (almost playful). But if she’s in a bad mood, it’s fighting right from the start. When I do stress bonding in the tub it does work but the second she’s not stressed, it’s back to the nipping. This definitely feels like a plateau with no forward progress so I’m not really sure what to do next? Is it possible her nippy nature will doom this bond?
- 01/08/2014 at 8:09 PM
  tanlover14
  Participant
  3617 posts
  Have you tried squirting her with a water bottle when she’s nipping at the other bun? I do this with my group when I’m bonding (I always seem to have one who loves to nip everyone else!). The idea behind it is to cause a negative reaction every time she does it so she begins to associate the nipping with getting sprayed. My girl typically runs away foot flicking but after a few times she gives up and quits.
- 01/09/2014 at 10:51 PM
  Sharma
  Participant
  5 posts
  Posted By tanlover14 on 01/08/2014 08:09 PM
  
  Have you tried squirting her with a water bottle when she’s nipping at the other bun? I do this with my group when I’m bonding (I always seem to have one who loves to nip everyone else!). The idea behind it is to cause a negative reaction every time she does it so she begins to associate the nipping with getting sprayed. My girl typically runs away foot flicking but after a few times she gives up and quits.
  
  Absolutely. I’ve been doing that from the beginning and it deters her in the immediate moments after. But on the long term, it hasn’t caused any negative association with nipping.
- 01/10/2014 at 2:56 PM
  mia
  Participant
  552 posts
  Don’t know if you have tried this but…
  I have a very dominant female bun who just wouldn’t bond with a third despite many different methods. They were comfortable in each others presence but not bonded. Our breakthrough came when I started forcing them (all three) into one litter box whether petting them while they were in there or letting them eat their hay. It wasn’t immediate but it was a dramatic improvement and over days of force sharing a litter box, they bonded.
- 01/10/2014 at 9:14 PM
  tanlover14
  Participant
  3617 posts
  Ah, Miaeih. You just reminded me I did something similar.
  
  Here’s a blog post I had written about bonding my quartet. We had A LOT of issues with nipping. You may be able to pull something from there. Sometimes it’s hard to remember all the different things you tried but that was my hardest bond and I had to switch things up a million times before they actually began showing improvement.
  
  http://www.wheekwheekthump.com/2014/01/02/rabbit-bonding-series-part-3-bonding-quartet/
- 02/05/2014 at 10:01 AM
  Sharma
  Participant
  5 posts
  Hi everyone,
  
  We seem to have moved on to a different stage it feels like. The nipper has calmed down a bit but the nippee has become REALLY afraid of her. Whenever they are together he’ll wait for her to approach him, freak out, run away and thump loudly. He bolts away and is just really nervous around her. Sometimes they do interact fine, some chasing, and it seems like he has given up trying to nip her back.
  
  Does this sound like a step forward or a step back?
- 02/17/2014 at 8:08 PM
  KW BunnyMystic
  Participant
  4 posts
  I’m bonding four right now. I am halfway through a bonding marathon that started three days ago on Friday afternoon.
  
  tanlover14 has given me a ton of ideas, follow the link she gave you a while ago and read everything on bonding, it helped me greatly.
  
  I have the exact same situation you describe, times two!
  
  Two of my bunnies, a bonded brother and sister of lops, nip ALL THE TIME! Sometimes aggressively, sometimes just to get another bun to move out of their way, sometimes for no reason at all.
  
  My other two bunnies had gotten very fearful, and reacted hysterically to the nips, jumping around, knocking things over, thumping, running over the other rabbits, just chaos. This would often provoke more nipping for the two biters!
  
  I have tried several things that helped.
  
  1. Changing up the stressors and going from one stress session right into the next back to back. For example, a session in the dryer (dryer turned off and cool, but turning the drum as soon as the nipping starts), car rides, in a small box on the washer and dryer, in small cage around very intense (but safe) dogs that they don’t know, and loud noises.
  
  2. Long extended sessions, in very tight quarters, either a small cage with a sheet over it or a box with very high sides and covered. I put them in the tight spaces right after a couple of hours of stress sessions, and intervene when nipping/squabbling starts. If the nipping and skirmishes escalate or become constant and no amount of squirting with a water bottle, or shouting, or vacuum cleaner running or pulling the cage or box around settles it down, back into the dryer they go and back into the car in a small laundry basket.
  
  3. As I said, a marathon bonding session, where they are never separated, no matter what. I am on day three of this, day and night bonding in a small cage with constant supervision, and there has been a dramatic improvement in the nipping and the fear and hysterical reaction by the other two.
  
  Good Luck!
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