I need some advice. My partner and I adopted a 5 year old dwarf lop (M) around this time last year. He is neutered. He lives in an an x-pen in the living room of our apartment, and is allowed to free roam for most of the day. Last month, we adopted a Dutch bunny in hopes of bonding her with the lop. The male was rather reserved when we brought him home last year, but since taking it slow with him he’s opened up so much- but I worry that I made a mistake in taking the female home after a rocky first meeting.

She was spayed last month on the 17th. We brought our male to the foster mom’s home.. But he immediately tried to attack her, even after a 50 minute ride in the car. The foster mom tried squishing them together and petting in tandem, but he kept trying to rear his head over to bite multiple times. For some reason, we still brought her home. More on this later. Pre bonding couldn’t start for a few weeks after we discovered a fractured bone in her foot, so while she healed, we moved the male’s xpen into our bedroom.

It’s been about two weeks since that happened, so we decided to begin prebonding again in hopes that he’s also had time to “forget” the rocky speed date. The female has not shown any aggression towards him since the beginning, even after several attempts were made to bite her. They have never shared an enclosure since we brought them home, as our male starts acting very aggressively when he sees her. The first week she was here, we had visual barriers in place. Despite this, he would often get riled up if someone so much as bumped the cage, thinking it was another bunny. He’d immediately fly into a blind rage and attack anything nearby, like, a an absolute flurry of rage, attacking things in the enclosure, honking, growling, running around looking for a way out. We spent a few weeks swapping their litter boxes and toys. Now that her foot is all healed up, we’ve since moved his enclosure back to the living room across from hers, and have begun moving the bunnies back and forth between their pens so they can get used to using each other’s stuff and smells- as instructed by a local bonder. At first I was worried that maybe there hadn’t been enough time since her spay was recent at the time, and that was why he immediately tried to attack her… (she was 2 weeks out from the spay at the time of the speed date) But now that she’s had time to settle in, he seems almost just as on edge as he was before. We have a bonder’s help but I feel lost as to what to do at home with them before we hand things over to her.

What do I do when he goes into a blind rage? Should I soothe him? Should I let it just happen? I feel like I’m doing everything wrong here. I just thought that the foster mom saw potential that I didn’t, and now I’m wondering if I should’ve questioned it all more :/ I have tried soothing him once during one of these rage fits where she had rattled the cage and (knowing i was at risk of being bitten) I tried stepping in to reach him and he immediately bit my leg, pretty hard through pants LOL I’m just worried he will really hurt her if given the chance…if there’s anything anyone can suggest to help me make progress at home, anything would be appreciated.