Litter Training Issues

[Tater Tot]

It’s been two weeks since I started to work on litter training. I keep my rabbit in my room in a pen. To keep her from ruining the carpet, I have a waterproof tablecloth on the floor. When I see poops and pee, I clean it up and put it in her litter box or throw it away. I keep hay in the front of the box. I recently bought a second litter box for her. I don’t know if she just needs more time or if I should do something differently. Thanks.

[SeeShmemilyPlay]

My bun’s food bowl for pellets is inside the litter box, which helps a lot. Also, how old is your bun and are they altered? That usually has an effect on whether they use the box or not

[Tater Tot]

She’s three years old and spayed.

[Wick & Fable]

You’re off to a good start. Cleaning up accidents and moving them to the boxes is good for sanitary reasons and to help make the connection, but more will need to be done since she’s not picking up on it. Think about it this way: You need to clean a litter box regularly, so there are times when your rabbit needs to know that the litter box is where she needs to go, even though it doesn’t currently smell like her. The learning isn’t “Oh, my pee and poop never stay here so I guess I shouldn’t go there anymore.” It should be “Oh, if I need to go, I need to always go here.”

To make that “here” connection, you mau need to physically move hwr to the litterbox every time she pees or poops, since the poop being there isn’t enough for her.

I trained Wick (and still do) by doing a short hiss every time he pees outside his box. I then immediately take him to the litter box. It’s a better teaching moment if I hiss and stop him before pee exits, that way I put him in the box and he pees in it, so I can praise him for that perfect litter box behavior. After doing this constantly, he got it, to the point where if I put him in a litter box randomly, he’ll pee if he has a pee built up in there (very helpful when I suspect he is in search of a place to pee but isn’t thinking about the litter boxes).

I watched his butt madly, pretty much all the time. I do the same for poops as well. In fact for poops, I’ll put him in the box, and he’d jump out sometimes and drop a poop and I’ll then immediately put him back in the box for pooping directly outside the box.

Do you think this is something you could try? The hiss works well for Wick because the sound spooks him and gets him alert (helpful for training purposes), but mainly you just need a consistent sound so it becomes associated with “you’re about to go in the litterbox because of what happened right when I made that sound”.

The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.

[Tater Tot]

Im new to this forum, so I can’t tell if my reply worked! But she is 3 and I recently had her spayed.

[Tater Tot]

Thank you! I will try this, but she seems to mostly make a mess as soon as I go to sleep! It’s very frustrating.

[Author]

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