At wit’s end with loss of litter training – help!

[DebMcD]

I am really hoping someone on this forum can give me some advice about my female lop, Amelia, as I have reached breaking point with her behaviour. We adopted her as a companion for our existing male dutch just over a year ago. Bonding went well and they appear to adore each other – I have never witnessed any fighting since the bonding process finished and they constantly groom each other. She was spayed just before we adopted her by her previous owner, at my request and I shared half the cost (I got a copy of the records from the vet who carried out the procedure). She would therefore have been around 14 months when spayed. We litter trained her after adoption with very little fuss. She was very skittish and nervous initially as I think she had had minimal handling from her previous owner. However, over the course of the last 14 months she has grown more and more comfortable with being handled and seeks attention when I open the cage door in the morning. Both rabbits share a very large dog crate as a cage but have free run of the first floor of our house for most of the day – at least 7-8 hours every day. However, over the past 6 months she has started dribbling urine in the cage and has what the vet has called hutch burn on her feet and backside. At his suggestion we have taken her off pellets so she is only on hay (unlimited), I have put grates in their large litter trays so she is never sitting on wet litter. The dribbles she leaves in the cage are very dark brown. She will sometimes spray the walls around the cage. Today I found that she has dribbled in several places on carpet around the house as well as leaving piles of droppings in each place – this is the first time she has done that. She has had blood tests, urine analysis, x-rays, ultra-sounds and they have all come back negative. The vet has therefore ruled out urinary tract infection, bladder sludge and cancer. Arthritis is not an issue – she can move around just fine. I don’t know what else to do. I am at the end of my tether. I have spent a fortune on the vet and still have no answers. I am constantly having to clean carpets, the walls around the cage and bathe her bottom, which becomes matted and foul smelling. I love her – she is a sweet and gentle natured bun but I’m just not sure how much more of this I can take – I don’t have the time or the money to keep this up much longer. The vet is stumped and is wondering if it is hormonal/behavioural. Has anyone else come across this before??

[Starah]

Poor you and poor Amelia!
This is not something I’ve come across, but I just found this on a google search;

http://m.petmd.com/rabbit/conditions/urinary/c_rb_urinary_incontinence

The article sites a few causes which you can rule out immediately (like the things you’ve already tested for and the poor living conditions it mentions as it sounds like Amelia has a lovely home!)

It does talk about kidney stones which might be worth checking, as well as spinal injury-is there any chance she might have caused herself an injury which you didn’t see, buns are so good at hiding these things.

This article about bladder stones may also be of use;
http://www.rabbit.org/health/urolith.html

Like I said, it’s not something I’ve come across, but a kidney problem could be a route to investigate. Both articles talk about ‘sludge’ which sounds similar to what you’re describing as well as a lack of awareness that they are even urinating. There’s a chance that Amelia hasn’t become ‘un-trained’ but rather she has lost the ability to recognise she is urinating.

Best of luck to you.

[Hazel]

It does sound like territorial/hormonal behavior, given that there’s no underlying health issue. Did you know the vet who did the spay? Were they rabbit savvy? They should have removed both the uterus AND the ovaries, some vets don’t do that because they don’t know better. If you can, get in touch with the vet and make sure they removed everything.

[DebMcD]

Thanks both for your suggestions and the link. The vet has ruled out kidney stones and sludge through the testing he has done so don’t think it is those. Having seen her move, I honestly don’t believe it is anything to do with a spinal injury. I am leaning more towards the hormonal thing but not sure what we do about it. I didn’t know the vet who did the spay but have looked him up on-line and he is listed on the House Rabbit Society’s website as being rabbit savvy so I am fairly comfortable that he would have known what he was doing. I have a copy of the records and showed them to my vet who said there was nothing out of the ordinary shown on them. He has said that x-rays/scans etc don’t show up whether anything was left behind – the only option to see if that was the case would be to open her back up again and I really don’t want to go down that road. He has put her on some sort of hormone dietary supplement but it doesn’t seem to be helping.

[Hazel]

An x-ray wouldn’t show you much in regards to soft tissue. They should do an ultrasound to see if anything was left behind. Did they not give you that option?

It’s important to know for sure, not so much because of her behavior but because her cancer risk will be over 85% by the time she’s 3-4 years old, if she hasn’t had a complete spay.

I’ve never heard of using dietary supplements to combat hormonal behavior, you said it’s not helping and if something was left in there, I really wouldn’t expect it to.
I’d have them do the ultrasound and go from there. If he’s not certain he will be able to find what he’s looking for, maybe you can find a more rabbit savvy vet to do it.

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