Is this match completely hopeless??

[Fred_Bear]

I have a 10 month old black Rex named Freddy and a 6 month old Holland Lop called Bear. Both are desexed.
I’ve had Freddy since he was 9 weeks but I got bear a couple of months back to be companion for him. Bear had a difficult spay and we almost lost her, so she had to spend a week in hospital. We’ve left her a few weeks to recoup but now we’ve decided to start the bonding process; it’s going badly to say the least.
He is so pushy with her, he’ll make a beeline and charge at her with no provokation. He’s tearing chunks from her fur and she just cowers from him now. They’re both such sweet bunnies on their own, but together he’s a bully. He won’t even sniff her or anything.

We’ve tried short ‘dates’ long ones, we’ve put them in the bath, a pen and even given them the run of the hallway. We’ve tried swapping cages but he just doesn’t want to know. All I see is pure aggression on his part. She seems quite interested in him, but she’s too shy to approach, so just runs away when he moves because she’s grown afraid of him.

I’m new to keeping house rabbits, so any advice would be gratefully appreciated!!

[Sindri]

I have a similar situation. I got a female rabbit to be a companion to my male rabbit. He was extremely aggressive and always went straight to attacking my female. She was scared and never would interact back. I took several breaks where my rabbits couldn’t see each other and I have tried all kinds of things to get them to like each other. I would take a break right now before the fights get worse. I did have some success with bonding in a box. I wish I had tried that first before the bathtub and other areas. I would stress bond them in a box. take them for a car ride. Of course have someone with to make sure the rabbits aren’t tearing each other up. If you cant do car rides which I couldn’t I would drag the box around and stroll them around in the box and it would scare them. my male rabbit began to groom my female however he would attack if she moved. I also got to the point where my male wouldn’t attack first thing.However one day my female finally snapped and attacked my male a couple of times. He then decided he would also fight back. The last interactions were really bad.
So now I am on a huge break I may start bonding all over again in a few months.
My best advice is if you can take a break so they can forget each other for awhile. Then try small visits in a box like I mentioned above. Put your female in first and then the male and stress bond them. You have to do it often as well. I did it everyday for 45 minutes to an hour. They seemed to do better the longer they were together. Start shorter until you can gage what works for you. I wish you the best of luck in your bonding. I wish I was a bonding expert. I too am new to rabbits and bonding. hopefully someone else that’s done it often can give you more advice. I just had to comment because I have the same type of issue and I wanted to tell you what I did see improvement with. I hope its early on and you haven’t had too many fights like mine have had. I didn’t start stress bonding in a box until after many fights and no success. Again good luck and I look forward to hearing how things go! =)

[LongEaredLions]

It is not hopeless. I just bonded a trio that was like this, but now they are as happy as can be. I would recommend you do some stress bonding in the car or on the washing machine, as well as lots of forced snuggles. Good luck!

[Gracie]

Not hopeless at all. Fur pulling is fairly standard in bonding. I had a hopeless match once and that involved bites that needed antibiotics to prevent abscesses.

It sounds like Freddy is being territorial. He’s thinking of Bear as a threat which is the behavior you need to change. If you manage that then they should be able to start learning how to live together.

Separate them for a month. Get their smell out of each other’s living spaces completely. Give them some time to forget each other. While they’re separated (after they’ve been apart a few days) a technique that’s worked for me is surrogate petting. I pet one rabbit, making sure I pet their chin’s as much as possible so their scent is all over my hand and then I pet the other one, making sure they smell my hand. So they associate petting with the other rabbit. Stop feeding them treats while they’re separate. Save treats exclusively for dates.

When you’re ready to start bonding again either move them to a location that Freddy has never been before or scrub the area thoroughly for smell. Make the environment as foreign as possible. Make sure Freddy and Bear can’t get at each other through the cage walls.

I’ve been having similar problems in bonding my trio as you. My George is an extremely territorial bunny and he’s been awful to my other male, Rory. They’re angels separate but put them together and they go bananas. I had a break through last night (my profile picture was taken last night and is the result of my break through).

What I did was get angry at the amount of poop that was everywhere and decide to vacuum in their cages. My boys hate the vacuum. I usually sweep inside their cages but it had gotten out of hand in there. I started vacuuming, the boys flipped out, and I thought “hey, free stress bonding”. I’ve never found stress bonding to be super successful before mine aren’t worried by cars or washing machines. But I think because the vacuum moves around like a predator would it causes them to freak.

So, I stick all three of them in a carrier. After they’ve been stressed I took them to an area I had set up for bonding, But only Amy (who’s not afraid of anything) hops out. The boys are still both in the carrier. I’ve got the top load door open, to watch them and they both keep doing this thing where they go to the entrance, chicken out about leaving, but hang in the door until the other boy bites their rump to make them move so that he can stand in the door and chicken out about leaving. The idiots started biting each other while trapped in this carrier and I did the first thing that came to mind – petted them. Now as soon as I started petting them they both calmed down. After a while of being petted they snuggled together. I unclamped the roof of the carrier, so it was just the bottom pan. I ended up with all three of them in there cuddling. They were all grooming each other and snuggling and just generally sinking into bunny bliss. The boys have stopped biting each other except for little nips. No fighting at all. (Hopefully it lasts and we don’t back slide).

Other things that have worked for me are:

-Making sure bonding spaces are not just unfamiliar to the rabbits but are unfamiliar to me. Anything that smells like me, George thinks belongs to him. So most of my buns dates have been outside or in the basement.

-Having weird flooring in the bonding spaces. This is the principal behind bath tubs, but for my guys the space has always been too small. But the concrete in the basement has always weirded them out.

-Short dates. Especially with aggression problems the goal is to make the rabbits not see each other as the enemy. When I stuck them in Neutral territory the first 2 minutes were usually just exploring.

-Petting. I pet them all the time during dates. Sometimes a whole date is just petting. I’ve heard arguments against this. But I’ve always found that it calms them down and reassures them that their safe.

-Most importantly, Talking. Talk constantly during the dates. The things I say during dates are idiotic. I usually sit there telling them how handsome/beautiful they are. When they get near each other I tell them not to bite. When they do pull each other’s hair, I tell them that it wasn’t nice and I pet which ever rabbit got their hair pulled. They can’t understand your words but they can understand your tone. Most the things people suggest for breaking up fights (water bottles, shoes on hands, rattling the xpen) have never worked for me, but if I just yell “Stop it right now or you’re never getting another carrot”. Every bunny freezes in place.

Be confident, be firm and be hopeful with them. You’re the source of all that is good and wonderful in their lives. Convince yourself that they will bond and they will be happy together and it will make convincing them so much easier. You can do this

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