I can understand your frustration. I dealt with the same sort of thing with my boy bun just a few months ago. He randomly started peeing next to his litter box. Nothing helped and it was a little annoying waking up during the night to go to the loo myself to see big pee spots from him. Like yours, he seemed to mainly do it when I wasn’t there to stop him. On the occasions where I could see him, I could pat his little bum and show him the litter box and that worked a few times til he decided to be a stubborn little monster and wouldn’t budge when I patted his butt. Instead, he’d pee immediately and then hop away! Sometimes he even looked in the litter box and decide it wasn’t for him so he’d pee next to it lol.

I can’t offer any advice I’m afraid because my boy stopped this new habit all by himself and I’ve no idea why! But you’re not alone with this problem. Maybe it’s a boy bun thing?!

There’s a difference between litter-box trained and litter-box adherent, in my opinion. Litter-box trained is the rabbit understands it should go to the restroom in the designated litter box, while adherence is how well they abide by that. WIck is litter-boxed trained, not adherent.

Every rabbit’s scenarios and reasons may be different, but below is an outline of the four, sole reasons why Wick pees outside the box:
1) General Marking – Despite being neutered, Wick very much still wants to mark new areas, or areas he does not always get access to. For example, my walk-in closet. It’s always closed, but there are times I open it and Wick goes in as well. Wick always wants to pee once he gets in there, so I watch him and hiss at him once he tries to, or scoot him out of there before the attempt even occurs.
2) Frustration – Wick. is. a. huge. jerk. Haha. He pees when he’s frustrated at me or his other parent. This comes typically in three forms: First, he smells fruit but we don’t give him any. He follows us around, hoping to get some, and when it goes for too long and he realizes he gotten none, he hops a few steps and pees in front of us. Second, he is denied access to somewhere he wants to go. The office is the only place he’s not allowed to go in, for his safety. On days where there’s high traffic to the office (me and his other parent stepping over the barrier regularly) and even on days we don’t, he will constantly pee at the barrier wall. There’s always pee there. There’s dried up pee there now in fact. Third, similar to the first, he’ll pee on the bed if I take too long to get out of it and feed him. A joy indeed.
3) Inconvenience – If he wakes up from a nap on the sofa, or from his main sleep on the bedroom dresser, both are pretty far from litter boxes. He may dash to the box to take a whizz, but sometimes he’ll just rummage where he is and pee there instead.
4) Teeth – His teeth are bothering him so his inadherent pees skyrocket. When his teeth are bugging him, his fuse gets so short, so impatience, frustration, tolerance, everything drops and so his last-resort of sassy peeing because his first resort. The week prior to a regular teeth grinding for him is typically filled with pee. Everywhere.

— Generally, the inadherent pees have lessened, but I doubt they’ll ever go away, because in Wick’s case, they are purposeful, not out of not-knowing. I know he knows better, because if I walk up to him while he’s about to do it, he’ll run away with a head shake, which, in that context, is a sign of frustration (“Damn. I can’t do it.”).

Three keys to helping reduce his pees are:
1) Stop him when he’s in the act (right at the butt arch) and put him in the litter box instead.
2) Avoid the temptation all together by bringing him to the litter box when I know he needs to pee (i.e. after he wakes up and I see he didn’t go to the litterbox yet, get him away from the office barrier when I see him fixated on it).
3) Perseverance. Try and do #1/2 as much as possible.

… Applying my experience to Wick with your rabbit, I’d suggest, when it is possible (i.e. you’re home), have him free-roam, and keep an eye out when he’s in the usual areas he’ll pee. Be ready to hiss at him or just get him away from that area in general so you don’t need to keep monitoring him. You can’t help what happens when you’re gone (Wick may leave a pee on the sofa while I’m gone, about once a month?), but when you’re there, the more learning-opportunities (i.e. stopped attempts followed by litter box transport) or the less successful attempts (i.e. preventing him from doing it in the first place) will strengthen the idea that he should not be doing it, and this may influence his behavior when you’re not present. Again, Wick still does these pees, but they’re at a lower frequency before. He made me severely frustrated, but now it’s pretty tolerable as long as I stay attentive.

More specific to you, blocking off the area he usually pees in for a week, then relinquishing that block, sounds like a very tempting time to re-pee on that block. Wick would 100% do that. If blocking it was successful, I’d readhere to that when you’re gone, and when you’re home, take the barrier out and get ready to prevent the tempted pee, for a learning experience.

In terms of how to stop a pee, Wick and many rabbits are startled by a loud, forceful hiss. Obviously constantly scaring a rabbit can really stress them and some rabbits do die from fright, but in the context of litter-box habits, I think a sound cue is very important. A hiss gets Wick to pause so I can walk up to him and bring him to a litter box. Some times I hiss and he runs away, but I don’t want him peeing somewhere else so I sort of hiss-follow him to a litterbox. End of the day, he’ll end up in that litterbox to release that pee, nowhere else. Wick has been hiss-programmed since 9 weeks old, so it’s not a sound he’s terrified at, it’s one he’s alert to “Crap, I’m gonna get put in the litterbox”.

I hope this helps. Deep breaths!1

How large is his free run area?

If the area is large he is probably just too far from his potty, so is making a new one. I think this could be especially true if the kitchen is out of sight of his main box. You might try adding a box in the kitchen and/or bathroom and see if that helps. Some folks end up with a box in every corner!

The bean bag is probably because it’s soft and smells strongly of you.

You can also try restricting his space to an area small enough that his box habits return, then slowly increasing it.

Gotcha. We had a whole saga with Bertha peeing outside her box recently (just a few feet away), and I think it’s finally getting under control.

With her I found it was helpful to wait to clean up the pee until after she was locked in her condo for the night/day. There were times when I would be cleaning up her pee, and she would pee again right next to me as I was cleaning it!

I also found that cleaning with vinegar was leaving too strong of a vinegar smell, which I think was encouraging her to remark the area. I ended up using the unscented Nature’s miracle carpet shampoo, and I wait until it’s dry to let her back in the area.

I have also been trying to make the litter box way more inviting by always topping it up with lots of fresh fluffy hay in addition to what’s in the rack.

I can’t tell if it’s just because her bond is more settled in, but there has been way less marking (maybe once every 2 days now). Although yesterday I was plucking tufts of loose fur from her bum, and apparently got too personal, as she hopped up and peed right there! Sassy girl!

Like Sarah, I can’t tell if it was something I did to improve the problem, or if it just resolved itself.