Bond breakdown, now my bunny seems to hate life!

[DeVito and Django]

Hi everyone, this’ll be a lengthy post but please stick with me..
So, last year I rescued a beautiful Rex. I had been looking after him at work (I’m an RVN) and he had been attacked by a group of other bunnies at the pet shop. He was not a pretty sight! Large gaping wound in the abdomen and lots of nasty scabs. He suffered a few bouts of GI issues during his recovery too. I had grown attached to him and when he was transferred to a rescue centre I decided to take him on. I have always dreamed of having bunnies but my Mum never allowed it. I had bought my first house and prepared for the right bunnies to come along and he was a perfect fit!
He was too small to be castrated straight away and I wanted him to settle in so he spent 3 months entire until he was neutered. He is the love of my life, the bond I have with him is amazing.. I have his portrait tattooed on my forearm! He lives in his own bedroom with different levels and loads of toys and enrichment, he comes out to free run when we are home (although he has never learned how to get downstairs so he tends to sit on my bed or play with my dog) Whenever I go to his room he binkies and jumps on my back and head and he litter trained very easily. I have, however, noticed that he’s a bit special. He will often run into things and he is very vocal- abnormally so. He also seems to lack boundaries with the dog and us! Also, when he’s sleeping and I enter the room it takes him ages to realise I’m there.
Aside, a very happy bunny. Eats well, binkies, rolls on his back in front of us and purrs when we stroke his nose. I am knowledgable on bunnies and I’ve done everything right (that I can think of)
So of course, he hits the correct age and we neuter him. Wait a few months, I bet you can see where this is going.. time to find a friend.
I put the word out and was contacted by a fabulous rescue who had a good match for him.
Now, I know and so do the very experienced people who work for the rescue, that the best bond should be achieved with a neutered male and female.. however there was a little Nethie boy who really needed a home after being saved from Gumtree (?) living in a birdcage.
I saw no harm in a bunny date, if they liked each other then great, if not we would arrange more dates with lady bunnies.
So, the little guy came round and three of us sat in my living room (neutral territory) to see what happened. This is the surprising part. The Nethie put his head down and allowed the Rex to groom him almost instantly. Within half an hour they were snuggled up on my sofa side by side (see my profile photo)
It couldn’t have gone better so of course, I took Django on.
For the first few days I let them meet on the neutral ground but kept them seperate using a playpen barrier across the room. I would go in there and they were grooming through the bars or lying next to each other. They seemed to pine for one another.
So I fast tracked and allowed meetings in their bedroom without the barrier, perfect. They were so happy. Eventually I removed the barrier.
For a week they were the happiest bunnies I’d ever seen.
One week in, I heard banging upstairs, I ran up and the room was covered in hair (rex hair) and they were both out of breath. I checked for wounds and seperated them for the night (with the barrier) The next morning I removed the barrier to observe, the Nethie tried to hump the Rex and a fight broke out.. a pretty brutal one in which both bunnies and me got bitten!
I put them in seperate carriers and took them to work that day where we treated the wounds (just a clip and clean and a bit of Metacam- nothing to deep)
They were in seperate kennels for my shift then after work I decided to use a completely neutral ground whilst I was there and see what happened (this time with gauntlets!) The Nethie flew for him straight away.
Went home and put up the barrier. That night I heard noise and the Nethie had been pulling the Rex’ fur out through the bars!
They hated each other!
I sought advice from friends and colleagues that night and the general consensus was to seperate for a bit.. I moved Nethie downstairs and Rex stayed up. I have decided to give them two weeks and then reintroduce in New neutral ground (my Mums house) In the meantime I have one upstairs and one downstairs with free run whilst I’m in.
Nethie is in his element downstairs in a playpen and when I’m home he sits by me on the couch and rolls on his back. Rex however.. he’s changed. I’ve been ill for a week and stuck on the sofa so my partner has been doing the feeding and mucking out. He said that whenever he went up there DeVito was being aggressive. Now, in typical Rex fashion he has always liked his food too much, you risk losing a hand every time you feed him- so I thought it was that.
Today I’m just starting to get back up and about, so I went up to see my baby and he was flying for me! Grunting and trying to bite my legs! He seemed furious.
I’d worry about carrying Django’s scent but I had showered and changed before I went in there. He’s not binkying, his ears are back. I don’t know what to do!
Does anyone have any ideas?!
I can see that mistakes have been made on my part, don’t get me wrong.. I know that two boys don’t always work and I should’ve taken longer with the bonding process etc.. but what can I do now?! I don’t want DeVito to be unhappy.
I’m devastated at how this has gone, really.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated. ❤️

** I feel awful referring to them as ‘Nethie’ and ‘Rex’ but I didn’t want to confuse anyone. DeVito is my rexxy and Django is my Nethie.

[Sirius&Luna]

Welcome to binky bunny, and i’m sorry to hear about this distressing situation!

I think what has happened here is that they were allowed to move in together too quickly, in the time that the nethie was still settling in to his new home. Often when a rabbit moves into a new home, it is more timid and will put up with more than they usually would. However, a few weeks later when he’s settled in and feels at home, he’s ready to put his foot down. So, because they were bonded in the ‘settling in’ period, you didn’t see the nethie’s true behaviour, and once he felt safe enough, he decided it was worth fighting over territory or whatever it was that caused the fight. (Please don’t feel like this is an accusation – I know you’ve said you know you moved too fast, I’m just explaining why I think this happened, as it’s something we see pretty regularly here – you obviously care about both buns a lot!).

Since you’ve tried reintroducing them, and it ended in a fight, they are clearly holding grudges and you need to keep them totally separate for 3 months so they forget each other. After that, you need to take it slowly, prebond them for a month, then start bonding sessions on neutral territory. These should be spread out over a month, so you can see how they interact together. It should culminate in you watching them non-stop for 24 hours in their new home. I can imagine it will be scary to trust them again after what happened last time, but, if you take the bonding process slowly you should build up trust, and hopefully the same issues won’t happen again.

I imagine DeVito is sad because he lost his new friend – it does sound like the fight came mostly from the Django’s side, and that would make sense too, given the theory above. I would just try and spend more time with him and reassure him, he’s probably just feeling confused about all the recent changes.

[DeVito and Django]

Thank you so much for your reply!
I 100% agree with the theory that Django found his feet and decided he wanted to be ‘top dog’
I should’ve preempted this with him being a Netherland assassin ??
He is also very very brave with my dog, he has no fear now he’s settled in!

I’ve sat with DeVito most of the night tonight and he’s done a few binkies for me and came for cuddles eventually. I just feel so sorry for him! He’s very needy, he doesn’t seem to understand signals- I always put this down to the fact that he was seperated from his original group when he was very very young and therefore didn’t learn how to act correctly. I was noticing that he was all over Django at the beginning and he was probably too much for him. He’s only really ever known us and our dog as friends, bless him.

I will take all of that on board and keep them apart for longer. We have a baby gate so they can both free run with a floor each. I just hope so much that I can successfully bond them eventually. Otherwise I’ll be needing a girlfriend for both and I think my fiancée will leave me!

[Sirius&Luna]

I’m glad DeVito has cheered up a bit! On the plus side, it sounds like he’s easy to bond, so hopefully in the future he’ll just submit to Django and they’ll get along fine! It can be difficult when they don’t ‘speak bunny’ very well though!

I think if you give them a break, and then do the proper prebonding and bonding steps, they should have a good chance of bonding

[Author]

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