Litter Training HELP.

[tanlover14]

 

I got my boy bun neutered when he was almost 5 months old — he just turned 7 months this past weekend.  Before his neuter was he was litter boxed trained and rarely ever had any accidents.  Since his neuter, he’s been out of control and all our attempts to litter train him have been useless.  It’s gotten to the point where we make him go in his litter box every time he comes out for playtime except he has been become extremely aggressive about anything litter training lately.  He’s normally a loving, playful bun but has lately been nipping and getting obviously angry any time anything litter related comes into the picture.  To the point where he won’t let us touch him or come near him 

 

We are in desperate need of a new course of action to tackle his litter box habits since he’s obviously getting worse and we’re getting more frustrated as time goes on since our other two buns he’s bonded to are PERFECT about their litter habits.

 

So frustrating and ANY/ALL advice would be very much appreciated!

[Elrohwen]

How are his litter habits when he’s in his cage? Are they better or worse than when he’s out for exercise time? What kind of floors do you have? If it’s carpet, he may have decided that peeing on carpet is fun because it’s absorbent.

How do you clean up his accidents? Having any smell left on the floor (whether you can detect it or not) is basically an invitation to use that area as a bathroom, so it could be that it’s not cleaned up well enough.

[tanlover14]

His litter habits in his cage are VERY good. And before his neuter he only had a few accidents outside but now it’s ALL the time. And when we notice he’s going to go and try to herd him in his litter box he HATES it and that’s when he gets aggressive about it.

We do have carpet but we’ve been cleaning all the accidents up with one of those Bissell hand-held carpet cleaners. We were thinking about borrowing one of the actual big ones and seeing if that helps.

Putting him in his litter box immediately helped before when his neuter and that’s how he caught on and was really good until his hormones started kicking in but even then he only had a few accidents and was never aggressive about it. If he wasn’t getting aggressive I would just keep doing it the way we’re doing until he finally got the hint — but his aggression about it is just getting worse and was starting to hinder our relationship with him. He stopped letting us pet him and almost refused to always come out of the cage so we’ve eased up on him… but don’t really know where to do from here with him.

[Elrohwen]

I wouldn’t bother with the bigger carpet cleaner – I think you need to use vinegar+water or something like Nature’s Miracle. The carpet cleaner is certainly helping, but you need something acidic to neutralize the ammonia odor that remains in the carpet.

If he’s good at it in the cage, I would limit his space to a smaller area when he’s out (ie not the whole living room or whatever). He clearly knows what a litter box is for, and if he’ll use it in a small area he can gradually use it in a big area.

[tanlover14]

We actually have Nature’s Miracle so we’ll have to give that a try. We’re taking him to the vet tomorrow morning just to make sure he doesn’t have anything forgotten or left from the neuter and to make sure he’s not having any bladder issues that could be causing it. If not, then I guess we’ll have to just keep working with him. The area he’s been peeing in is so close to his cage that it would be really hard to make the area he plays in much smaller.

[tanlover14]

So turns out he has no issues — except behaviorial. Thankfully, the vet is going to contact the House Rabbit Society and see what they say on how to work with his problems without harming our bond with him. So stressful.

[Author]

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