Hi everyone,

I’m new to this forum so please bare with me, I’ve done a quick intro in the welcome section.

I have Poppy and Ragnar, we’ve had Poppy for about 2.5 years I think and we adopted Ragnar about five weeks ago. I started the bonding process on Tuesday, 6 weeks after Ragnar was neutered. It is going fine I think. 

The first day was lots of mounting, Ragnar mainly mounting Poppy but Poppy did mount him a few times. She seemed to accept it more than him, she wouldn’t run away when he was on her, whereas Ragnar would instantly try to get away. So I assumed that Ragnar was going to be the dominant one. They didn’t groom each other but they would happily lay stretched out a foot or two away from each other, eat near each other. There was no aggression and no fighting.

Day two was pretty similar. There was less mounting but it was still Ragnar chasing Poppy. Now, Poppy is a funny one, she loves to be chased, she does this things where she runs away, sits and waits for you, then runs a bit more, and if you don’t chase after her she starts running around your feet. She was doing a similar things with Ragnar, waiting for him to get close, then running very slowly away, waiting for him to catch up. We tried putting banana on their faces to encourage grooming but they just shook it off and Ragnar just ate whatever was on the floor!

Day three I only had them together for an hour or so in the evening, hardly any mounting but Poppy was starting to nip Ragnar a bit, in a way she does with me when I stop rubbing her head. Both of them kept putting their heads low to the ground but neither were attempting to groom. They would eat a bit of hay together but still no grooming, they laid together but would only stay like that if I rubbed both of their heads at the same time. 

Day four (today), I’ve had them together most of the day, from 10am until 5:30pm. They snuggled up a bit together, under a step ladder. Ate some hay together and Ragnar has started grooming Poppy’s head. The problem I’m facing is that Ragnar will start grooming Poppy’s head and after about 5 seconds, Poppy shakes her head and runs away. 

Is it possible for neither of them to be sub? There’s no fighting and I know it’s early days. Any advice would be great