LITTER TRAINING A 6 YEAR OLD BUNNY?

[Deleted User]

I bought Floppy when my hamster died in October of 2000.

The petstore told us he was a female. We didn’t know much about  rabbit’s at that point, my mom compared buying a rabbit, to buying  a toad..

We realized soon after, we’d have to spay ‘her’, otherwise most female bunnies will develop cancer and die.

After realizing she was infact a he, we decided not to have him neutered.

Now to get to my question…

Floppy used to be litter trained 100%..it seems as got older, he started getting worse and worse…

He has free roam of the house, with the exception of being in his cage while we sleep, he only chooses to go in my room, the hallway, and the ‘den’.

While you’ll see the occasional dropping in the den and the hallway, he seems to choose my room to be his litterbox.

I don’t know what to do! It’s become ridiculous. I just remodeled my room, I scrubbed the carpets like crazy, and there’s still stains. The first week or so, he didn’t urinate on my carpet, and was fairly good, but today he must have left 75 poos on my floor! It’s a HUGE pain to pick up!

Is it possible to re-litter train him? If so, any tips? I saw the tip about spraying a little perfume, or lemon-oil, I’ll look into that!

I really do have some other questions, but I’ll ask those in a seperate post a bit later, sorry if this is so long =/, and thankyou!

[BinkyBunny]

WELCOME beautiful!!!   I’m sorry for the delay in responding to you.

Unfortunately it is not uncommon for Pet stores to make mistakes.  Many just don’t have the correct information on many subjects from the sex of a bunny to what it should be eating.   And it is true that unspayed females have a high risk of cancer in their reproductive organs, and that really should be told to customers so they can prevent it.

First: Does he go in his litterbox still?  I mean is he having any trouble getting into his litterbox? I just want to be sure he is not exhibiting any symptoms that could reveal any illness that would be causing a loss of his litterbox habits. 

So, with that said, I believe he is doing this because you remodeled your room.  Everything looks and smells different and he is "remarking" his territory.    At least he is not urinating, but poop everywhere is no fun either!   He will stop doing this once he gets used your room and feels assured that he has left enough "messages" telling everyone this new place is his place too.

SO, in order to stop him from leaving poop messages everywhere, you either live with the mess until it dies down OR you establish it as YOUR territory.  Which means, the first few days he comes into your room, you shoo him out.  Then allow him in, but watch carefully, and the moment he leaves a poo, you shoo him out.  This could take weeks but eventually he should give up and see it as your territory.

Let us know how that goes.

 

 

[Deleted User]

It’s Alright =]

Well, he goes in there yes, but he seems to think that he can use my carpet too..
Well, he was doing it long before, I only remodled it, a week or so ago =/

The problem, with that is..his cage is in my room…that’s probably why he feels it’s his territory, but how do I get him to feel that it’s not the whole room…just his cage?

[BinkyBunny]

THIS IS ACTUALLY A POST FROM ANISTARK  (I accidentally deleted as I was responding – don’t even know how I did that!! SO SORRY Anistark)

09/04/2006 7:55 PM RE: LITTER TRAINING A 6 YEAR OLD BUNNY? by anitastark Okay, this might be a complete shot in the dark but I’ve been watching a lot of programs on Animal Planet.  One of them "Barking Mad" is a pet psychology show.  I’ve seen where they want to reassure an animal about its territory they recommend taking a slightly damp cloth and rubbing the animal all over to pick up its scent.  Then they take the cloth and rub it in places where the animal has been marking so that they detect their own scent there already and don’t feel the need to re-mark the spot.  I’ve seen them do this with dogs and cats so far, maybe it would also work for bunnies? Of course I guess that would only help if it’s territorial marking that he’s doing.

Very interesting idea!! I am going to try it with my persistent dominant female, Bailey!  I am definitely going to keep this in my notes!!

[BinkyBunny]

EDITED:

Hmmm.  Well since this has been happening before and it seems to be a slow progression, you may need to have him get a check up with a vet,  just to be sure there isn’t any medical reason that he’s losing his habits.

Also, sometimes rabbits just slowly fall back into bad habits.  So you may need to retrain him which means limiting his freedom a bit for a while.  Do you have an x-pen so he can still get exercise while limiting his freedom?

 And when he’s allowed out, you’ll have to really pay attention to him for the next few weeks and make sure he goes back into his pen, and into his litterbox when he starts marking.

By the way where are his litterboxes?

[Author]

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