Difficult bonding /dominance is not clear/

[Sophie]

Hey everyone! I just discovered this forum while I was looking for some advice, so I decided to make a post, because I’m kind of losing hope right now. ?

Background: Boci is a 2 years old lionhead dwarf rabbit male, neutered a long time ago. We have had him for a year now. We adopted him alongside his brother, who unfortunately passed away last October. (He had to have his eyes removed due to infalmation and he died after the surgery) He is very social loves human company but petting is not his thing. I think he was the submissive in their rwlationship but I’m not sure cause other than grooming, no other dominance behaviour occured.

We decided to adopt a new bunny, because Boci and his brother loved eachother very much and they were so happy, and after he died Boci seemed to be bored and depressed. We adopted Masni, who is now a 1 year old female, neutered just few weeks before we adopted her. She is a mixed rabbit, around 4-4.5 kg while Boci is 1.5 kg. She arrived in November, she gets scared easaly, loves petting and she gives us kisses. ( btw she was found in a garden along with his 7 brothers and sisters, living like wild rabbits, with tunnels and everything, before they rescued her.)

We set up their 2 cages next to each other and started pre bonding. Now as it turned out a week later we made a mistake, because it was not in a neutral space. The problem was that we live in a 2 room apartment and the living room, which is the biggest, was already Boci’s territory but our bedroom is too small to fit the 2 cages, so we left Boci in the living room and put Masni in our bedroom and we set up a babygate in the corridor that connects the 2. That way they were able to meet eachother every day and we also swiched their litter box every day. We put their breakfast and dinner on each side of the babygate so they would eat together, however their hay and water was back in their cage. This went on for a few weeks, cause we saw a bit of agression in both of them and didn’t want a fight. Also, Masni was just neutered so maybe we made a mistake with that too, but she was 6 months old so the shelter/their doctor said ther would be no problem with hormones yet. (Keep in mind that she is technically a meat rabbit)

So when we saw they were more comfortable with eachother we started bonding. Took them to car rides, no problem at all, Boci even groomed Masni. The dates were kept in the shower. Now they were really confusing. As I mentioned Boci grooms Masni. A lot. And she is really agressivly asking for it and Boci always grooms her, but then after a few minutes he gets bored or I dont even know, and he pushes his face into Masnis, asking for grooming. She never does. In the 6 months we are trying to bond them she groomed him maybe 3 times and only for a few seconds. After she rejects Boci, he starts to nibble her, sometimes just casually, no harm but sometimes he pulls fur out and Masni fights back and they start fighting. Obviously we always stop the fight immediatly but I don’t understand what is happening. Other times they just go back mindig their own stuff.

Then I got fed up with not moving forward for months, and put their cages next to eachother in the tiny corridor which they both used as the neutral space. I know its not the best but we have a small apartment. I tought that maybe it would help to have them closer to eachother 24/7. We continued the dates, but moved them to a kitchen (bigger, new space, I tought maybe that would help too) but everything is the same.

So Masni is very pushy, asking for grooming, always gets it, Boci grooms her for like 5-10 minutes every time. He wants grooming too, doesn’t get it, starts a fight. He also nibbles Masni to send her away from a corner she sits in and then sit on her spot. Sometimes he tries to chase her too. This is what has been going on the past 2 months now.

I forgot to mention that these dates are kept almost every day for 1-2 hours. Otherwise they are comfortable with eachother, they eat together nicely, no fighting over food or water. They sometimes sleep/relax next to eachother or very close to eachother. I think they like eachother but can’t decide who is going to be the dominant?? Or they don’t understand eachother? What can I do to move foward? We are so close yet so far. I even considered whatif we would just keep them separately. Please help! Thanks in advance! (Also, english is not my first language so sorry for the mistakes)

Im getting tired, it’s been more than 6 months now…

[Daisy]

You say they are fighting, what exactly is it that they do?

Do they turn into one pile of kicking and biting rabbits? Or will they nip and chase, resulting in pulled out fur? The first one is very serious and I’m not sure how to help you if that is the case, but indeed definetly pull them apart. The second one is not real fighting and there is no need to pull them apart. Pulling them apart in those situations can cause the dominance dance (as I like to call it) to be distorted.

I know people on this forum are a big fan of the “date a few hours every day” method, but have you tried just leaving them together for as long as possible? There are thoughts that having short dates and seperating can again lead to a distorted dominance dance, they may have to restart their dominance dance over and over again due to this. Just make sure they don’t become the pile of kicking rabbits and that both rabbits are able to eat, drink and rest every now and then (possibly one of them may keep the other away from the food for example). Weirdly a quick Google search did not get me anything useful in English on this method, I suppose it may be a local method or something then. :’)

[Sophie]

It’s the second, they chase eachother and nibble. Not a serious fight but it’s still hard not to help. We will try not to, thanks.

Actually, I didn’t mention this bc I didn’t know how ppl here would react but a local professional bunny rescuer/bonder just advised to us that we put them in a 3. neutral cage and keep them there as long as possible, maybe 5-6 days even with 24/7 supervision. Thats what she does with the rescued bunnies and it works. That way they can’t escape from eachother and have to work through their dominance problems.

[sarahthegemini]

Just wanting to give my opinion on the marathon bond technique (putting them together and never seperating) It CAN work. It’s how I bonded my pair HOWEVER it only works if both buns are already comfortable around one another. I did a 4 hour session as my first bonding session and then the next day I put my rabbits together and supervised 24/7 til I considered them bonded. It took two weeks – I didn’t consider them bonded til they’d sorted out their hierarchy. If your bunnies are chasing each other quite a bit, I really wouldn’t recommend the marathon method. It’s also not fair to keep them together 24/7 if one is preventing the other from eating, drinking, resting etc because that bun will constantly be on edge not to mention if bun is not able to eat properly…well, we all know what could happen. I’m not saying your buns will be like that but it’s something you need to keep in mind. I always wanted to opt for the marathon method but ultimately, I had to be sure my rabbits would allow it.

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