Don’t know what to do with my Doe?!

[vchristina1]

I recently got a Doe for my male rabbit, Benjamin.

Benjamin is 8 months old and the Doe (Bella) is 6 months. Both have been neutered/spayed and had chance to calm their hormones down. Bonding went exceptionally well and it was pretty much love at first sight and they were living together within a few days. 

Benjamin is sweet, loveable, loves kisses and cuddles.

Bella on the other hand,  I feel a little lost and don’t know what to do anymore. They have free roam of a large double bedroom so they’re not caged… I cannot get anywhere near her. For no reason she seems petrified of humans (which she never seemed to be when we first got her, it seems to be getting slowly progressively worse) I don’t force petting on her, I don’t grab her, I let her come to me, she comes up to me once in a blue moon, sniffs me and runs off and hides again. Our house is very quiet, no children, but she just seems to absolutely not want to even be near me. 

I cannot get her out of the room/or it’s very difficult to get her out of the room so I can clean it/vaccum/tidy up etc. She’s not left the room in three days because I physically cannot get anywhere near her and I don’t want to chase her around to pick her up when she’s clearly frightened.

Secondly, she’s not taken to litter training very well at all. She uses the litter tray sometimes (mainly if I’m sat with them in the room keeping them company) but when i’m not around she’s poo’ing all over the room and peeing everywhere too. I came to see this morning two enormous urine stains on the floor. She only ever seems happy/content when she’s cuddled up to Benjamin and they are washing each other and relaxing. She sees Benjamin run over to me for cuddles/pets/treats and she still isn’t interested. 

It’s getting to the point where I love Benjamin so much and I know is he much happier having company of his own kind but I don’t know if I can commit to the next up to 10 years of a rabbit I cannot get within two feet of and is destroying my carpet, the bedroom reeks of rabbit urine now and I cannot even get our carpet cleaner machine out because I cannot seem to get near her to get her out of the room and into the run in the garden.

Please help or if anyone has any suggestions let me know.

[Serenity]

To get the smell out of the carpet, use baking soda while it’s wet and cover it with a towel to keep the buns off. If it’s too dry, use a natural cleaner that won’t hurt the buns.
As for the litter training problem, try enclosing Bella more. Keep her close to the pan at all times cause chances are she’s just being lazy and doesn’t want to bother herself by going all the way over there. So increase the number of litter trays and enclose her more so that she doesn’t really have much choice of wandering away. This may also give you a chance to bond with her more. Whenever you can stay close to her cage and maybe put your hand in there. Don’t try to touch her necessarily but just to show her that the presence of your hand doesn’t mean anything in particular and eventually, she should get curious and try to investigate. Hope this helps!

[kurottabun]

How long have you had her? Some bunnies just take much longer to warm up than others. Since you mentioned you only got her recently, it could be that she’s still wary of you. The pooping and peeing could also be territorial since she’s new to the space.

It’s hard not to compare a new bun with an existing one, but try to remember that each bun is different

[vchristina1]

I’ve only had her a month, you are right I need to give her more time to come to me, i’m just going to play it by ear. I spend a lot of time with them (I only work part time) so i’m hoping it’ll pay off eventually because as I said I can’t do upto 10 years of this. I’m thinking i’ll give it to the end of the year and the reassess what to do from there if nothing has changed

[kurottabun]

Hope it goes well and do update us if anything changes!

[vchristina1]

Hi all,

Okay I have tried confining her to a smaller space/cage but she still will not let me touch her. She actually trembles with fear which breaks my heart. Nothing in the household has ever happened to her to warrant such a scared reaction. I never ever force petting on her.

I feel as though we are going backwards, not forwards. Now, she wont even eat in front of me because shes too nervous she will eat once I have left the room.

Shes such a gentle sweet rabbit but I can not do this for approx 10 years, plus, shes still urinating and pooing absolutely everywhere I am at my wits end. Please are there any other suggestions? My partner and my mother are getting quite impatient and have said to either put her in a cage outside and give them play dates once a day, or rehome her. I dont like the thought of her being outside, alone in all of the elements. I fear I am heading towards the rehoming option which I would hate to do but because I cannot get anywhere near her or even look at her sometimes, I do not have any sort of bond with her.

Please, any suggestions?

[Sirius&Luna]

You can’t rehome just her if they’re bonded. Once rabbits are bonded, they need to stay together. Rabbits mourn and will be very distressed if they are split up. It can result in GI stasis as they might refuse to eat if their bonded partner suddenly disappears. You also can’t house them separately if they are bonded.

I think you’re taking this very personally. She’s a rabbit, they are prey animals and some are more fearful than others. Just give her some time. It’s only been a week since your first post about this and you’ve only had her a month. Rabbits need time. Some people report it taking a year for a fearful rabbit to come round. Stop thinking about how you have potentially ten years of this, and think about how little time it’s been since you’ve had her. If you are potentially going to have them for ten years, then what’s a month of training at the beginning?

If you need to get her out of the room to clean etc, have you tried shooing her into a carry box?

For litter training, I suggest putting down some lino or some other non-absorbant flooring to a. make cleaning easier and b. help discourage her from peeing in the wrong place (rabbits don’t like to sit in their own pee, so when it pools on wood or lino, rather than soaks into carpet, its more discouraging for them). What’s the litter tray set up? Do you have a few? Is it a few spots that she always pees in? Start off with lots of litter trays wherever she pees, and hopefully you can gradually remove some. If you can’t pick her up, try offering her a treat whenever you see her in a litterbox. You can also make a sound to associate peeing not in the litter tray as bad, like a hiss or a clap. That way you don’t have to pick her up, but she still learns it’s bad. Rabbits take patience, and some rabbits do not naturally take to litter training, so it’s more effort.

[kurottabun]

Have you taken her to a rabbit savvy vet before? Sometimes bunnies act out of sorts when they’re uncomfortable. Perhaps something is bothering her health wise which is setting her off all the time.

[Daisy]

You can herd her to a corner of the room with panels and do your cleaning as she’s locked up in that corner. If you want to vaccuum without her being there (I always do it while they’re still in their pen, they got more or less used to me), put a carrier or box in there. Most likely she will want hide in there and then you can just pick her up when she’s in the carrier/box.

My previous bun was very skittish, but she learned that food spawned wherever I was (I gave her a lot of treats to try and make her like me) so after a while she would come up to me looking for treats every now and then (and shen when she found the treat/realised there was nothing she ran off again to do her business). That’s the most I got out of it in those 7.5 years. :’) But honestly it’s just how some bunnies are. The extremely affectionate buns are way more rare than the skittish ones! And since you already have a bun, you should be content with just cuddling with the male bun and leaving the female bun to do her bun things.

The peeing issue is annoying indeed. It seems that she’s still quite new to her environment and may want to mark it as hers. I would leave her (and her mate) in an enclosed pen for a bit (1 week-1 month) and let her get used to that being her home so that she feels secure. Make sure there are plenty of hidey houses there and only feed/give water/give treats when she’s in there, don’t try playing with her in there because she may feel you’re invading her territory. See if she warms up a little this way and stops feeling the need to mark her territory. My Muffin only marks when she feels insecure (strangers in the house for example).

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