One-way grooming – is it the way it is supposed to be?

[Karla]

I have a question regarding grooming.

Karl and Molly are bonded (4 weeks), and Karl is really caring and grooms Molly a lot. She, however, doesn’t groom him at all. She is very demanding when it comes to grooming. She pushes her head under his belly or up against his face all the time, and the first 2 weeks he was grooming her constantly, but know he is starting to ignore her sometimes, although she is still groomed quite a lot. I just have a feeling that he would really like to be groomed as well. He sometimes tries to pushes his head down towards her asking for a groom, but then she just does the same, and he gives in.

 

It breaks my heart, so I try to give him as much pet as possible – but Molly always comes running from somewhere and pushes her head in front of him. So it will only work for 1-2 minutes and then he either grooms Molly or leaves.

 

I have tried the banana trick, but it didn’t work (and banana is really difficult to get out of bunny hair ). I have noticed that she licks herself if I pet her on her bottom, so I have tried to tricker some grooming, but so far no luck.

 

Is Karl upset/sad about not being groomed, or is this just natural bunny hierarchy and I am just projecting my feelings about it on to him?

 

No doubt that she is domineering ‘cause she also takes his food when he is trying to eat. And when he is playing with his pellet ball, she moves in front of him and steals the pellets falling out of it.

[KytKattin]

I was told this when I asked the same question about Nova grooming Hubble and him not returning the affection; It’s just how some rabbit relationships are. It’s not a bad thing, it’s just how they have things worked out. In fact, in my signature, that seemingly adorable picture is of Nova begging for Hubble to groom her, but he never has. I think it seems worse for us as humans than it actually is for the rabbits. If you think about it, many rabbits don’t ever have friends at all! So just give your boy some extra pets to make up for it and don’t project your sadness onto him. He is happy simply to have another bunny to be around.

[Karla]

So glad you say this!

I have been really sad on his behalf thinking that he felt rejected. But I would like to think that it is okay and normal bunny behaviour – and thank you for pointing out that some bunnies don’t have friends at all. Made me feel a lot better

[katie, max & penny]

yup the dominant rabbit rarely grooms the subservient rabbit- totally normal social behavior

[Alicia]

Tucker and Drue have the same kind of relationship.  Tucker always grooms Drue and he rarely ever grooms her..and when he does it’s for a second or so and when she grooms him it’s for quite a while and she does it on a regular basis. 

[Furface]

That’s true with my pair as well, Bugsy rarely is the groomer. She is the dominant one who gets groomed.

[MooBunnay]

That is how my pair Juli and Kramer started out as well, after 3 years now they both groom each other, but it took a lot of demanding (by Kramer) to get groomed by Juli! I agree with KytKattin, your bunnies are super lucky to have the companionship of another bunny, and if they aren’t fighting, it means that their relationship is working out for them, so I think you should be very proud

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

Absolutely normal. Ditto Moobunny-you should be proud

(I think it’s like how Dave will not clean the bathrooms, so I won’t do his laundry-it’s just the way things work )

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