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- This topic has 5sd replies, 3 voices, and was last updated 7 years, 8 months ago by
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Hi all! I’m new to this site, so I wasn’t sure if this truly belonged in the behavior section or not, forgive me if I didn’t put this in the best section.
I want to transition my bunny Thunder to entirely free roam. I had him neutered about a month ago and he is now doing really well with his litterbox training so I want to give him full access to the house (with proper bunny proofing of course). Before, he would have my entire room and living room to himself in the daytime and go into his large ex-pen at night with toys, food, and litter box. My main issue is that I’ve always had to use his ex-pen to block off my bed in the daytime while he has access to the rest of my room, because he jumps on my bed and uses it as his litter box
I obviously wouldn’t want to do this at night, I’d basically be locking myself up in the cage. What can I do to deter him from getting on my bed? I’ve only ever seen people use plastic sheets/shower curtains and sprays, but sprays seem to wear off and plastic of course isn’t practical for sleeping. I’m a very deep sleeper, so if he jumped on my bed, I probably wouldn’t know until I woke up covered in rabbit pee. I’m sure there’s nothing that is entirely foolproof but what could be a major help until I can really ‘train’ him that he isn’t allowed?
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While you can’t train bunnies like dogs, it is sometimes possible to deter them from peeing on things, although it really depends on the rabbit. Thor used to pee on our couch when we first got her. Soft things with your scent on them will trigger marking – they want to claim it as their own too. We put a cloth with her scent on it (from the litterbox, not soaking in pee but definitely “marked”) on the couch for a few days. Not sure why but it worked! She hasn’t peed there again.
It may be that she would jump up and say “oh, this already smells like me, I don’t have to mark it again”.
Good luck! Thunder is adorable
Edit: not sure how this would work on a larger area like a bed… Also not sure if you want to sleep next to a bunny smelling cloth
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I feel like Thunder would probably still want to mark it, he likes to pee on nearly everything at LEAST once in the house, even now that he’s litter trained! I’ll just stick to blocking my bed off to be safe, I’ve went through enough detergent washing rabbit urine out of my comforter haha. Thank you both so much! And Thor is very cute as well
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Thank you!
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