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- This topic has 93sd replies, 9 voices, and was last updated 16 years ago by
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Yes, Jerseygirl, I’m pretty sure Lint feels threatened by Deirdra. Lint is a dominant bunny, humpy and dominant. I guess, Mops just puts up with him because Mops is very relaxed, never humps and generally just doesn’t care. Deirdra isn’t as submissive as Mops and in her budding friendship with Mops she is actually humping Mops sometimes. I know she won’t let Lint hump. Lint knows it, too. He doesn’t know how to be with another bun without being the boss…. so he’s kind of in shock…. but he’s smart and social and I hope he will figure out that there are other ways of relating to other rabbits besides humping them into submission!!!
I did a bath tub session last night, just Deirdra and Lint– went great in my estimation. They sat together, next to one another, touching, for the first time without getting in a quarrel.
you can see in the video clip that they were pretty scared, but at least it brought them together. -
I am looking for a new neutral area that is much smaller than the patio corner but allows more interacting than the bath tub. I never thought of didviding the patio space, this is worth a try. That way I can also section off the corner that Lint has declared his vantage point of fending off Deirdra.
In the meantime, I did more sessions in the tub. At first I turned the tap on because Lint was biting Deirdra. He stopped. Then he just pouted…
I did the scent transfer, too.
Lint wasn’t going to bit, he was relaxing a bit and i rubbed his face into Deirdra’s fur.
I will look in my basement to set up another contained zone for them, they have never been in the basement. There are different sounds from the laundry room I could use for stressors.
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Hmmm, I’ve never seen a bunny sit there like Lint does. I think he was almost daring Deirdra to move so he could nip her. I find that some agressive behaviour is triggered when the other rabbit moves. Maryann was more or less content with Dono as long as he didn’t move. The moment he did though, she’d turn and bite him. But any event that doesn’t end in fur flying is good one.
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I might do a car ride today but I have been rethinking my approach. I think stress bonding is what first stopped the nasty fighting between them but at this point I can see the same behavior that I dealt with when I bonded Lint with Mops. Small space seems to trigger aggression in Lint. So…. I spent yesterday doing a supervised ‘roaming’ bonding on the patio. I had all three, plus my dog and noise from my neighbors weed wacker as a stressor. It went well, First Lint avoided D, but he started moving around and inevitably ran into her. She showed interest in him, which he rejected with posturing but no biting.
I also used clicker training as a resort to avoiding fights; I had done clicker training with Lint when I first fostered him last year and my friend reminded me of this the other day. So every time, D and L ran into one another I’d click and every second time I’d click I’d also reward wiith Lint’s most irrestible (unhealthy) treat, tiny almond piece. — It was a long day, breakfast, lunch and dinner on the patio for me (life is tough
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I will try posting videos tomorrow. -
So this weekend is all about bunny-bonding. The weather was in my favor so I scheduled nothing but bonding.
I tried another neutral place not as scary as the bath tub with bad results. I put Lint and Deirdra in a giant travel crate in my basement. They had never been there, nothing was familiar. Lint acted aggressively, as I figured.
This was Friday. My friend phoned me after and she suggested (she knows that Lint is smart as a rat) that maybe Lint associated Deirdra with only stress and bad situations. Plus, I already knew that Lint gets very territorial and humpy in small spaces, he still displays this type of behavior toward Mops when confined in a small crate. So…. I took a leap of faith and took the sessions to the large area of my patio where Deirdra has her tunnel (figured she’d not want to share with Lint). I put Mops with them as well as the dogs, and evrybody in my neighborhood seemed to be running some kind of machine for yard work. There were no fights but Lint was tense.
He spent much time pouting in his ‘cheese’ box but no chasing and no fighting.
Whenever their paths crossed Lint found a way to avoid her, he jumped over the little barrier in this pic…
Yesterday ended on a good note with all three buns in Deirdra’s tunnel. I called it a day after that.
Today i decided to put together just Lint and Deirdra and the dogs and the surroundings were peaceful and quiet. Lint tried to claim the tunnel as his but after a half hour relaxed and allowed Deirdra a place in it. He was, however, very tense…
I clicked them over with the clicker and rewarded them both with treats. After that, they ate dandelions together, but Deirdra was shy, worried Lint would throw a fit…but he didnd’t, he just ate most of the dandies.
They ended up in their favorite spot, respectively, the tunnel (it is big enough for me to go in if I had to), and Lint relaxed, grooming…
They both went to sleep/grooming/doing cecals in the tunnel and spent two hours. Ended in good note.
i will try again, the three together, later on today because there are also jealousy issues over Mops coming from Lint. …
for now, I’m happy that there is some degree of tolerance. I will keep doing one bath tub session per day as well so i can get Lint to sit close to her and do more scent transfers. 
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so here’s the dandelion video clip that I messed up…
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I have had the trio of Lint, Mops and Deirdra together for 8 hours each on three coonsecutive days. I wanted to avoid the initial aggression Lint has toward Deirdra during the beginning of each session by allowing long continuous times together. I think, it’s working. There are friction points that trigger aggressive behavior from Lint, but there have been no fights. Mops has been great, serving as a common denominator between the other two. Yesterday, I had two major highlights happening that I caught on camera.
One was the trio lounging together, in close proximity.
Another highlight was dinner time. Lint usually will not tolerate Deirdra eating with him, but here…..
Right now, Lint will not allow Deirdra in the mini shed. I’m thinking of trying them out free-range in the room today… just for a short sesison, with any hiding/chasing places blocked off. I definitey want to add a stressor, not sure which. i’m still wondering, though, if two rabbits can bond that won’t submit to one another.
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Well, I’ve been following your thread and feel I’m not quite that far yet… Mine are doing fine on the patio set-up. So well they were getting on that I dared put them together indoors. I dissolved Deirdra’s condo and changed the room quite a bit. I blocked off the access to underneath my bed to allow the trio access to only open space. Deirdra and Mops are so close now, even Deirdra will groom Mops (it used to be only the other way around.. ). It’s so cute, too, since he has the long face furnishings it looked like she was flossing her front teeth with his cheek hairs…
I put them all into the room. Things went well, there were treats waiting for them, the dogs were lounging and I observed… I stayed up so late drawing out the sssion but then Lint started chasing Deirdra and she screamed as he grabbed her fur. Now she is more afraid of him than before. He seems to have gained his courage back to go and try for a humping… and she will not have it.Here they are at the beginning of the session…
I’m glad I took this photo because now it seems unreal that it really happened. Lint lied down first and D came after. Check out his expression, though, what is he thinking?
Lint is actually unhappy with this threesome… he is only keeping from chasing her off because Mops is between them.
After Deirdra screamed because Lint scared her, I put them in new territory in my yard in an L-shaped run.
…where they sat sat like this for the duration of the session after Lint had nipped at Deirdra right away when I put them in.
you can see Deirdra here very tense after she tried exploring the narrow run and getting nipped for it.
–I’m now setting up a pen in my basement to have a neutral place indoors where they will interact (nothing new happening in the bathtub). I believe very much in the paired bonding for trios/quartetts etc. where you introduce each bun individuallly to the new bun, but in my case here, Mops definitely seems to keep Lint from chasing Deirdra.
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Today went well, my new basement bunny zone is almost ready and will help, especially myself since watching the bonding sessions has kept me from getting other things done that I normally do in the basement.
On the patio this afternoon the normally uneventful time turned into a type of stress bonding delivered by the elments as we finally got the rain we needed !!
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Rabbit bonding can be…. unexpected! 
Yesterday, I needed a new strategy. I had been seeing no more changes on the patio, only the usual, sitting together but then no interactions…
indoors I had had only unfriendly sessions or, like the bath tub, no interactions.
I washed the grids from Deirdra’s dissasembled condo and put one up in my basement. Total no-bun’s land.
Last night, I furnished it, and at midnight I moved in Mops, then Deirdra and lastly, the little devil Lint. This was the first time, in an enclosed space he didn’t chase or freeze. All three thoroughly explored the new dwelling. It took a while and eventually they each picked a spot for themselves to do routines… Lint and Deirdra respectively at opposite ends of the 5 by 2 by 2 grid condo. I stayed up til 3 a.m. watching them and then napped off in my makeshift bed til 6!!! I woke up to three peaceful bunnies. (If they had founght it would have woke me.)
I will leave them like this since while they’re sleeping now and then in the late afternoon it will be exercise time on the patio and then back into the condo overnight.
The great news is that I could see right away how Lint’s attitude and demeanour was different than in any other location I had tried. He was more like the bunny I used to know before Deirdra came.
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Thanks, BB. i really enjoy the video-making. It actually helps to watch them back after the sessions to pick up on some triggered behaviors. I always find the nipping looks very bad when it happens, but then I watched my videos and found it wasn’t too serious, at all.
My three have been getting along. I don’t want to sleeo in my basement any longer… lol. — I observed a new thing Lint is doing to Deirdra: They all sit close together and then he starts to perform a ‘teethy groom’ on her that sometimes makes her jerk back a bit but not take off. It’s like a kitten’s love bites… licking and then a little pinch. But I’ve been finding no fur fluffs and their body language is relaxed. -It is going well.- I never thought I would say this, but I love having my bunnies in the basement, just because it helped the bond to happen!
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Thanks, Jersey!
Been missing your input… you sick or something? (eating crackers) I had no idea that the digging at someone meant ‘move’. But move she did… so Lint gets his wish. Overall, they get along. Lint even groomed D for the first time yesterday, brief, but without inflicting pain or making her dart away. So far she hasn’t delivered any grooming attempts towards him. Most of the grooming is between D and Mops, it’s pretty obvious that they are a couple now. Lint doesn’t really care. If he wants to chum wiith Mops, Mops will chum with him, too. It’s only day 8 in the bonding exile…
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It’s been about six weeks since I introduced D into the house, she was only recently spayed at that point. I began the bonding one month ago with a 12-day off-time after D almost pierced Lint’s ear when he chased her in a humping pursuit.
Since I moved them into the bonding condo ten days ago, tremendous progress has taken place.
On Friday I took these photos while I had placed them on the patio. I cleaned their condo and found only one tuft of D’s fur, in the litter box.
Lint’s attitude has changed toward D, nobunny is attempting any humping or is sitting separately, pouting. This is unexpected to me because Lint used to be a determined humper, I even doubt he is chasing Mops during the night (as he used to), as I find no hairs suggesting this.
They continue to be in a state of transition and social orders will be established over time. For now, they share Mops as their diligent groomer but grooming gestures have been made from Lint to D and vice versa!
This video below is interesting to me because they become startled by noises around them and it seems that Lint and Deirdra both take on watch-bunny duty while Mops is relaxed. At the end, where Lint makes a slight nippy gesture at D I believe it to be a mere stress reaction, having nothing to do with D personally. — Since L and D both receive grooms from Mops, and both of them take in-charge positions in suggested danger, I assume they are both dominant in this trio, but without humping. I think, my trio consists of two dominant buns and one submissive bun. I had believed there could only ever be one dominant in any group. Was I wrong?
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Posted By Petzy on 06/26/2009 10:03 AM
Thanks, Jersey! Been missing your input… you sick or something? (eating crackers) Was beginning of last week but all good now, thanks! I’m not that knowlegable in bonding but I do comment on what I see (think I see) from time to time.
That last video…maybe Mops didn’t hear the noise thru all that mane?! Seems the uppy ears are always super alert to these things. As to dominance, does D display much toward L? I can see a dominance toward Mops. Maybe it’s L – most dominant, then D then M.
Really interesting in final seconds of video – D lowers head to Mops and Lint reacts (he may have assumed she was requesting it from him.
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I agree with Binkybunny – what a great documentation of the whole process – I’m sorry I didn’t have much advice to give but I had a lot of fun following their whole bonding journey
I’ll be interested to see how their hierarchy ends up settling out, I’m wondering if Lint or Deidra will be #1, poor Mops is going to need extra papaya tablets of for all the fur he is grooming off Lint and D, haha -
Almost wo weeks in the bonding condo. No fights going on, and Deirdra started grooming Lint regularly, mostly without being asked to. Lint stopped nipping her, but she is always quick to dart away. Lint seems to seek her company for lounging but he does not ‘love’ her yet.
no. Deirdra grooming him just because he’s ‘there’…
Lint feeling her over without nipping, but that’s all.
Lint no longer nipping when D hops by close. .
Eating together and notice how D’s greens fall on L’s head… does not bug him like it used to when D would poke into his portions.
This I have been trying to get documented. The coveted litter box. There are two in the condo, one being the preferred choice by everybun, this one. Lint doesn’t do anything but Deirdra, feeling cornered maybe, thinks it safer to leave. I’m waiting for her to relax around Lint now that he has stopped the aggressions toward her. (*note: the condo is covered with blankets for the videos because I didn’t want to exhibit a chaos behind)
Lint very recently started to take his chances trying to get to hump D. It is unsuccesful but not causing any issues between them. She doesn’t run away very far, and he doesn’t chase her far.
Now, Deirdra is relaxed enough with Lint around to try getting to hump Mops. She tries frequently but not enough to stress him out. Sometimes he will endure it. (Video coverage of that incidence however has been censured.
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hahahahaha! that’s it: a “drive-by grooming” I thought that but I couldn’t find the term… is that an Australian thing? Maybe the wombats do it?
anyways, good eye! Lint definitely the nervous type. Nobunny will gang up on Mops… he is like a rare treasure because he never does anyone annoying to anyone!
–do you think Deirdra’s legs are okay like that? I have been wondering if they are splayed. -
It has been 3 months for my rabbits for being together as a trio. I wanted to give an update on their relationship. They never had any falling-out but Deirdra and Mops are the closest ones. No surprises there. Lint is sometimes rough with Deirdra, when she is blocking his way, e.g., or bugs him for grooms (she can be demanding). Deirdra knows to stop when he gets that way so it’s an understanding.
Two videos from earlier today. (sorry, not an action clip as Valmore delivered, my trio is laid-back
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YAYAYAYAYAY!!!!!!! 
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