Any help appreciated

[Bunnyland]

Hi! I’ll start off by saying I have absolutely no experience with bonding. I’ve had Miles, a dwarf for about 2 years now he’s been neutered when he was 8 months old. Because of our living situation we couldn’t get him a friend but after moving we decided to try it. We got Emmi who’s 6-7 months old, unfortunately after the vet visit my vet told me that he was not going to spay her because of her slow heart and the risk that she could die during anesthesia. I kept her in a separate room for about a week before putting their cages next to eachother. After another week, I saw a lot of positive behaviors flopping mext to eachother, eating close etc. That’s when I decided it was time to bond, tried stress bonding for 2 weeks, and I’ll just say it didn’t go too well. I did a lot of research and tried 24/7 bonding in the bathroom, which went quite well. They lived in the bathroom for 5 days straight without any fights, they were cuddling, and Emmi would groom Miles most of the time. There was some humping from Miles from time to time and it was the most stressful thing ever. When he humped her, she would make noises like she was in pain, which scared me a lot but she wouldn’t run away or try to fight. On day 6, I decided that it was time to move them to their new home since I only saw positive behaviors. And that’s where all hell broke loose, Miles would try to hump her non-stop, and she would just run away the whole time. It’s already day 5 of them being in their home and day 10 of being together 24/7. The humping and running has decreased to just when they’re most active, but that’s still about 13 hours of the time to time humping and running away. There’s absolutely no aggression involved, but I just don’t know what to do. Will this stop any time soon, or will this bond just not work out?



[DanaNM]

Hmm this is really tough. With an unspayed bun it’s possible that her hormones will cause excessive mounting forever, which would be stressful for both of them. These types of bonds are possible, but it depends a lot on the personality of the buns.

My sense is that they could work out, but I think you’ve probably gone too quickly between the neutral territory and the home territory, or you’ve gotten as far as you can with the 24/7 approach. I think either they should live as neighbors (which will still give them both some social enrichment), or you can try taking a much slower approach (daily dates) to see if some of the excitement calms over time, or you can take a step back and see if you just progressed too quickly.

If you move them back to the bathroom, does the humping subside? Or a different neutral territory?

 

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

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