Aggression and Separation Anxiety

[Taylor]

So, the rabbits have this dynamic where one rabbit has always been the dominant. Trippy is the dominant male and up until hormones started to cause them to fight, it seemed Wally was perfectly happy to be the beta bun and groom Trippy whenever Trippy liked. That was fine with me, they had a beautiful relationship. When the fighting started and we were pretty sure they needed to not be near enough to each other to pull out hair (because they have multiple times) we separated them into different cages and different play times.

It’s been too cold in their regular play area for them to be there, so we’ve been putting a play area up around Trippy’s cage (it’s a small room and we are trying to be curteous of roommates). When Wallace is out and about, Trippy will aggressively push his head into the bars and ask to be groomed and wally either (a) ignores him, which makes him anxious and he sometimes starts running quickly around his cage or (b) bites him on the face through the bars. 

What weirds me out the most is that if we catch Wally doing it, Trippy doesn’t move away. He flinches pretty dramatically and keeps his head down. He’s actually shaking the door of the cage right now because he wants to be near Wally. That’s, at least, what I think the situation is. Trippy is much more of a rabbit-rabbit, than a people-rabbit. Not so with Wallace.

I just feel awful. I’m not sure how to handle it. We’ve blocked off the front of Trip’s cage so that Wally can’t bite him anymore and Wally for the most part is totally unaffected, but Trippy is losing his mind in there.

I know the easy solution would be to move the play area somewhere else (which we will move them back into the bigger area when we have a space heater for that room), but I’m just wondering what this is about? We were hoping when we get them neutered that they’d be able to repair some of the distance and fighting they’ve had because it seems to me that Trippy enjoys Wally’s company. I know that males don’t get along well anyway, but I really am feeling bad for Trippy. Poor baby just wants some bunny love.

Any ideas? Have you seen/heard about this before?

[jerseygirl]

Im not really sure! But thought I’d reply and bump this thread up.

It could be he thinks he’s getting what he wanted, in a round-about-way. Grooming or attention from Wallace, even if it’s a bit rough?

Cage bars do change the dynamic quite a bit as it defines territory. BUT you’ll also see unbonded rabbits get along quite well with the divider (ie. flopped side by side with bars in between, or grooming through bars) but then all bets are off once the divider comes down.

[thepuro]

My rabbits had a similar situation- they were from the same litter and had to be separated as hormones kicked in. At first they were fine through the bars, but during a post-spay bonding session they had a big fight and needed to be separated. Prior to the fight, Ziggy had always been the beta bunny and would groom Iggy.

From then on, same situation. Iggy would stick her head through the bars and Ziggy would lunge at her face, but Iggy never gave up and kept sticking her head through.  She even managed to launch herself over the 40″ high pen into Ziggy’s pen once (which scared me as much as them..). Ziggy too was more people-oriented and Iggy more bunny-oriented. We eventually had to do the pen-within-a-pen thing in order to avoid face biting during their separate play times. Iggy never once tried to bite Ziggy back, it was always one-way. From then on, any bonding session seemed useless, Iggy would always put her head down and Ziggy would always lash out.

It turns out Ziggy was just hyper-territorial. She thought my entire apartment was her house and Iggy shouldn’t dare demand grooming from the boss. We brought them to someone else’s apartment for two weeks, then put them in a different part of my apartment for two weeks, then finally back in the original problem corner, and they’ve been friends ever since. They now take turns being the dominant bunny.

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