Slow bonding progress

[SirBunny]

So I am still in the early stages of bonding, they have had maybe 5 or 6 bonding sessions lasting up to an hour or so. Things are going relatively smoothly, there has been no fighting or other negative signs yet.

So far every single session has been a ‘bunny standoff’ where they smoosh their heads together, both demanding to be groomed. It feels kind of tense when they do this, so I am petting them both pretty consistently to keep them calm.The last few sessions I try to let them be for longer periods of time to see if anything resolves with their bunny standoff, but the situation stays kind of tense so I just go back to petting them.

I know this takes time and I am still in the early stages, so I am not too worried about this. The bigger issue for me right now is getting them into their carriers every time to bring them to the neutral territory set up.They are both in my bedroom upstairs, and the only available space I can use for neutral territory is downstairs.

So every time I want to do a bonding session, I have to get them both into carriers to bring them downstairs, which they hate. It takes forever to get them into the carrier and its at the point where I just have to grab them and put them in there. What worries me is they obviously dislike having to get into the carrier to be taken downstairs, so every bonding session where I do this will reinforce negative feelings they have towards bonding sessions.

 

Am I overthinking this?  Is there anything I can do differently? There really isn’t any neutral space I can use upstairs.

[Asriel and Bombur]

Just grab them while they’re in their litter boxes and transport them in those. Saves a lot of time, effort, and tears on both ends.

[SirBunny]

I suppose I could do that. They always jump into their litter box when I try to get them into the carrier, maybe its a safe space for them. But what if they jump out of the litter box when I am carrying them downstairs?

[Asriel and Bombur]

I’ve been doing it for a year and a half when I’ve had to transport them and they never do. I think when you’re holding them so high it scares them a bit into not wanting to do anything stupid.

[Nutmeg]

Gosh Darn it! I should have tried this with my two – as mine was the same issue but going upstairs and not down.
I gave up on the carrier and carried them up by hand…. Penny scratched the heck out of my chest trying to get down. I looked like I had made out with a Mountain Lion LOL – but since I had to pick them up to get them in the carrier I just said “Screw it” and just kept them there to carry.

But I agree, I was worried about them going in to the bonding session negatively. BUT what I also wish I had tried was to put them in the SAME carrier to move them up and down as that would have worked as a bit of “stress bonding” – trust me they aren’t going to fight if you are carrying that carrier down the stairs and its moving around.

*** Still try A&B’s suggestion first as that sounds the least stressful for everyone!! Good Luck with your bonding journey!

[BeanMode]

Is your carrier a top loader? I’ve found it almost impossible to get buns into a front loading one and the top ones a thousand times easier.

One of my two buns doesn’t handle being carried by hand very well at all, she’s larger and has balance issues so it’s harder to properly support her and she gets extra unstable. We started feeding her meals in her carrier (just put the bowl in and let her walk in on her own time) and while it’s still not her favorite place to be by any stretch of the imagination it seems to have helped her become acclimated enough to the carrier that we can use it instead of carrying her to whatever bonding area we have set up. I do like the litterbox idea though, definitely the quickest and easiest solution.

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