Bunny won’t stop peeing on the bed!

[bashfulbunny]

My bunny, Bashful, is litter trained. He leaves a trail of poops absolutely everywhere he goes, but he will only pee in his litter tray and he took to this pretty quickly. He’s always had the largest indoor cage that you can buy at pet stores, but we built a wire mesh baby gate on the door to my bedroom and let him roam free 24/7, even when I wasn’t home. He would only be shut away in his cage of a night. I’d never had any problems with this, until recently. Recently, I came home to find that Bashful had jumped onto my bed while I was working and left a nice little pee patch. I figured it was a one off, but it happened again a few days later, and then again.

Because of this, I revoked the free roaming privileges. I took him out of his store bought cage and instead, with help from my dad, have built him a large castle shaped play pen in the corner of my room, so that he has his own little bedroom to run about in without having the ability to jump up onto the bed and mark his territory. It’s a big space, so I don’t feel bad about him not being able to explore my room like he used to, though I still let him out to run around… but only when I’m in there.

Unfortunately, even though he’s incredibly happy with his new play pen (I’ve never seen him so happy, or binky so much!) Bashful will still jump up onto the bed and pee, often while I am sitting there! If this happens, I will gently tap his nose, say no, and put him back in his castle and not let him out til the next day. But it keeps happening, several days in a row now, and he doesn’t seem to be learning.

I don’t necessarily want to keep him off the bed entirely because he absolutely loves sitting up there with me, it’s where he does most of his binky’s! Is there any other way to train him not to pee on the bed? It’s the only place he does it besides his litter tray!

[Hazel]

Is he neutered? If not, that might be part of the problem. Although a lot of bunnies seem to like to pee on soft surfaces like beds or couches. Also, the bed smells like you, so it makes him want to mark it more than other spots. Some rabbits simply can’t be allowed on the bed or couch.

Rabbits don’t learn well through punishment, so tapping him on the nose and locking him up won’t teach him anything. All it does is destroy his trust in you.

If he is neutered, I would keep him off the bed for a while, and then try again for short amounts of time. But like I said, some bunnies just can’t be trusted to be on a bed.

[pixmix]

Anais peed on my bed only once- enough to never trust her on the bed ever again. Maybe your bunny just gets too excited at the thought of being up there?

[Jo Leigh]

Like Bashful, my rabbit Merlin absolutely loves to play and snuggle up on my bed with me. However, he also loves to pee! Instead of banning him from being up there (I love having him snuggle with me at night before bed!) I just make sure I always have old towels handy to cover the bed with when I do see him jump up there. I noticed he only tends to pee down one end of the bed so I make sure that end is covered, so that if he does decide to pee it doesn’t end up on my blankets. I find that the towel being there does deter him from peeing as often and it has also become one of his favourite toys. He loves to play with it, pull it around and nibble on the edges. Merlin isn’t neutered so I cannot say whether the problem would go away/lessen if he was. Allowing him on my bed from an early age probably wasn’t the smartest move but I don’t mind putting a towel down every now and again, especially if it means we can have our daily snuggle sessions up there

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