Dominant Diva won’t stop demanding grooms of his incredibly patient friend

[BeanMode]

Hi, posted a few times here already and looking for some advice. We’ve been bonding our buns for about two months now. (male/female pair both desexed and around 4-5 years old) and things have been going slow but okay. Our male is, more or less, a diva and this guy/girl pair has been acting more like girl/girl. No matter the length of the date the only thing he seems to want to do around her is demand she grooms him. And she does, bless her soul. She’ll put up with him pretty insistently demanding for 20-30 minutes (note- not completely non-stop, he’ll get uninterested and completely ignore her but when he comes back over or she moves he’s right back to his demands- it’s like an on/off switch). So when we work in a short time frame, less than 30 minutes, things have been pretty good and usually ended on good happy notes. Getting into any time longer than 30 minutes however is when our girl (understandably) gets fed up with him, growls, thumps, and turns away. Sometimes one party or the other will involve a nip (either “you need to get away from me” or “no actually groom me more” depending on the culprit- not fighting nips) into the situation. This sort of behavior has been pretty consistent for a few weeks.

Has anyone had any luck with a bun that just never seems to let up asking to be groomed? We have tried the banana on her forehead to try and get him to return some love but he hasn’t fallen for that trick yet. We’ve tried bigger space (gave her more of a break because he had a lot more room to explore but he still didn’t interact with her except his demands), smaller spaces (seemed to make situation worse quicker), and moving around to different neutral areas. I’m considering trying to get them completely out of the house and do a date somewhere totally new, but I’m also considering trying some stress bonding. We haven’t yet because to start the process was fairly stressful (I posted previously about my male having decreased appetite/some early signs of GI stasis potentially because of the stress) but I thought if we could find something that was a bit more stressful for him than for her it might work for the better? 

[Sirius&Luna]

Some nipping is necessary for them to communicate, so maybe you need to carry on with longer dates so that your boy learns that he doesn’t always get what he wants. It’s important that they’re able to resolve this without fighting, but at the same time, if they only have 30 minute dates that always go the same, they’re not going to make any progress. I would extend the date and intervene if it looks like it’s progressing beyond a couple of nips to a fight. If their interactions start to get negative, either squish them together and pet them, or put down a distraction like a big pile of hay to share.

I wouldn’t advise stressing if stress makes your male get stasis symptoms.

[Author]

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