How to deal with a smart rabbit

[LopLover]

Two weeks in, and I still love Igloo. He’s been fantastic in so many ways, save for one. He’s nearly ten weeks, and has done surprisingly well with litter box training. He lives in a 5’x3′ pen, with a cage that houses his hay and a litter box, and he has a second, larger litter box on the other side of the pen. Now, before I put in this new litter box, he was peeing and pooping in the corner it now sits in. So, naturally, I put it in that corner since it was his “chosen” place. He’s been moderately good about using it – most of the pee and poop end up in there. However, he’s gotten some rabbitude and developed an annoying habit of wiggling behind the litter box and peeing there as well. 

I have no idea why he’s doing this, but it’s driving me bonkers to come home and have to change the pee pad underneath his blanket, and then scrub the blanket with Urine Destroyer. The soiled bits of his litter get changed out EVERY morning (I leave the unsoiled bits in there, cause I’m eco-friendly like that), and beyond that he has two options for where to go. He never does this when I’m home, even if I’m sleeping (I check in the morning). I know that he knows he’s supposed to use his boxes, because when I open up his pen for playtime in the morning and evening, he NEVER has so much as a single poo on the carpet. The only thing I have noticed is that he seems to prefer to pee in the back corner of his litter box (it’s triangular), because that’s the section that’s always the most soaked.

 The new litter pan is, like I said, new – it’s only been in there for a few days. Do you guys think he just hasn’t realized that his blanketed corner is off limits for peeing now? 

What do I do?

[Bam]

Could you secure the litter box in that corner? Make it more difficult to move I mean? It seems like he wants to wee in his chosen place and thinks the box is in his way.

[BunsAndDolls]

I had the same problem with one of my boys. I had to zip tie the litterbox in place so he couldn’t move it. He finally realized that he could still use the bathroom in his elected space, he just had to do it INSIDE the box. I was eventually able to stop going through so many zip ties, lol.

[Eepster]

Possibly you are making the pan too clean removing every trace of urine every morning. When I change Porky’y litter I actually deliberately add back a bit of dirty litter on top of the new clean litter, so it smells like litter to Porky.

[LopLover]

Hey guys, thanks so much for the advice! BunsAndDolls, thankfully I didn’t have to use zip ties! His pen his shaped like the trapazoid, with the flat part being my wall, and his litter pan is wedged in the back right corner. The gate is super sturdy because it’s actually meant for my friends Bernese Mountain Dog (she’s too big for it now), but I think he was still able to wiggle around the side that was gate instead of wall. So, I took Bam’s idea and made that corner of the gate unmovable (at least for a bunny haha) by just putting his 10lb bag of fresh litter on the other side of it. I came home today to find that the pan had not been messed with at all, in terms of placement. Whether that’s from lack of effort, disinterest, or my genius, we’ll never know! But at least he’s peeing in the pan.

Eepster, how old is your furbaby? I’m curious because I actually do use the same technique, leaving a little bit of pee litter at the bottom of the pan under fresh new litter, so it still smells like a toilet to him. But, I do it because he’s so young and still learning. Is it the same case for you? Or do you just find it helps him stick to good habits?

[Eepster]

Porky was abandoned as an adult, so we can’t know his age. We have had him for going on 4 years now, so he is most likely 5+.

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