Should we give up?

[Vengeresse]

In February, my husband and I were living in Korea and decided to get a bunny – Todori. He was completely potty trained in about a day, never chewed (other than his toys), and hopped into our bed for snuggles every morning. He was perfect! I couldn’t believe that house rabbits were not more common. After a couple of months, however, he began to pull away from us. He would still hop onto the bed, but didn’t want us to pet him. His favorite place became the dark area behind the toilet. Whenever one of us stood up or moved toward him, he promptly hopped away. Concerned that he was lonely (don’t get too upset with me if this was a stupid thing to do), we decided to get another rabbit. We didn’t want accidental babies and Todori was still too young to be neutered, so we got another male rabbit that seemed to be about the same age. After a few days, Todori and Geemi were inseparable. While Todori remained cool toward my husband and myself, he LOVED Geemi. Geemi was very playful and loved to be petted as much as possible, but his house manners were terrible! He took months to potty train and still chews on absolutely anything he can get his teeth on. Our wall paper is gone, the carpet is ripped up, and every inch of cord is hidden from rabbit reach.

A few months after purchasing Geemi, it was time for us to move back to the states. All went well (other than Geemi’s propensity for destruction and Todori’s lack of human-love) until AFTER we had them neutered, when we estimated them to be about six months old. We woke in the middle of the night to one of them screaming, and came out to find Geemi cornered and chunks of hair everywhere. We separated them for a week and then tried to reunite them.  After about two more weeks with no fighting, we felt comfortable leaving them alone together again. They seemed to be back to normal. They were snuggling, grooming each other, and constantly together. Then, just last week, a fight broke out that we couldn’t break up. I was severely bitten and my husband’s arms were covered in scratches. Todori’s eye was so scratched that I’m surprised he wasn’t blinded.

We kept them apart for a week, then put up a fence between them, but all they seem to want to do is kill each other. They lunge, bite and scratch at the fence, trying to get an opportunity to get at the other rabbit. We don’t know what to do, and my husband is ready to give up. We live in a small apartment, so keeping them separate permanently is not an option. Please give us advice, before we have to start looking for a new home for one of our bunnies!

[Beka27]

Are you just putting them back together after a week’s separation or are you doing short bonding sessions each day and building up to reintroduction?

Read this link, this tells everything you need to know about the bonding process. Then please post your thoughts and tell us specifically what of this you have tried…

http://www.rabbitnetwork.org/articles/bond.shtml

[Vengeresse]

Thank you for the article. The only thing that we hadn’t tried is stress bonding, which we have been doing. They sit side by side in the car and show no inclination to fight, but since they’re terrified I don’t know that it’s too much of a victory… but I’ll keep going with it. We’ve tried so many things… I hope this final attempt will work!

[Author]

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