litter

[WhiteWolfofRivia]

Alright, so here’s the backstory on our bunny Luna: she’s approximately one year old, we got her spayed at six months. We were fortunate enough to have enough extra room in our home that we could give her an entire bedroom to herself. We kept her in this bedroom, but would let her out in our family room to play and have more room to exercise for a few hours a day.

We have to move unexpectedly, so we’ve been keeping her in a cage in the family room for about two weeks now while we get the house ready. And only a day or two after we put her there, she’s started peeing on the couch, and occasionally on the floor. I did some research online and thought that it might be because of a change in environment. It’s a room that she’s familiar with, but she hasn’t “lived” in that room before, so I thought that might be the issue but it’s been about two weeks and she still does it.

She doesn’t make a beeline to the spot on the couch to pee, and if she hops across the spot she won’t instantly pee there, she’ll randomly just feel the need to pee there and it’s incredibly frustrating. We’ve tried cleaning it thoroughly, putting blankets over the spot (she’ll still pee on the blanket), and even letting her out to play in another room. But even in the separate room, she’ll pee on the couches. We haven’t ever had this issue with her in the entire time we’ve owned her. Does anyone have any ideas as to why she would do this and how we can go about fixing it?

[bear_the_bunny]

Has she had problems with this in the past or at your old house?  It’s possible that even after two weeks, she’s still adjusting to the new home.  You could also try spraying perfume on a paper towel and then dabbing it where she pees to change the smell.  This might keep her away from it as well.  Another thing you could do is try reinforcing her litter training, just do the things you did when you first litter trained her to get her to understand more.

[kurottabun]

It’s highly likely that the change of environment has caused her to mark. Sometimes bear’s idea of changing the scent may or may not help though – some bunnies just get even more annoyed that they can’t smell themselves there and pee in the area more.

Two weeks is still a pretty short time so she probably needs to settle in more. My bun was leaving small puddles of pee in various spots for about 3 months (he has a room all to himself too) until he suddenly decided to stop about two weeks ago and now just pees in his litter box/cage. I hope it stays that way lol. A lot of buns will still like peeing on soft surfaces (beds and couches) even after being fixed though.

If you happen to be there when she’s about to pee, you could make a hissing sound or a light clap to spook her once you see the “arched butt” so she holds in the pee for a bit, and then put her in the box immediately after.

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