stupid question about car ride bonding

[Ruffles&Daisy]

So when you do the car ride, do you put them in the same carrier?  What if things get out of control?

side note:  We went to a rabbit adoption day and put our name on this cute little lionhead mix girl.  She was very sweet and gentle but still needs to be spayed (she will get fixed tomorrow), then I can possibly take her home at the end of the week.  We never dated with Ruffles because of the hormone factor, but I think her mellowness and his mellowness will mesh pretty well.  Also, there are people in my area who will come in and help with bonding if things get rough.  We have a nice setup here for rabbit people.  Rabbit people should move to Raleigh!!  We have vets and behavior specialists… who knew? 

By the way, as an inexperienced rabbit person who has a smallish bun, I didn’t realize how big rabbits could get.  There was a big flemish giant, and he was alarmingly huge.  Also, even the regular sized rabbits looked big to me. 

[Beka27]

That’s great! I hope all works out with the Lionhead girl! ((((successful spay vibes to her!))))

Are you saying in terms of car bonding just around the neighborhood, or are you thinking of putting them together on the car ride home from the rescue? She will still need to heal up for 3-4 weeks before they are put together. Until that time, you can switch pens each evening, make sure they are in close proximity to each other, but cannot actually reach each other.

I never did car bonding myself, we took rides on the washing machine. What you want to do in the car would be put them in a box or laundry basket on the back seat, something that you can have easy access into. Someone else would need to drive you, you’d be in the backseat with them watching out for any scuffles. It would be a good idea to have an additional carrier, just in case they need to be separated in transit.

What I liked about the washing machine was that straight from there we could go to our neutral bonding space with little in between time. You might try that first to see if it works well enough.

[Ruffles&Daisy]

Thanks Beka, I’m a little scared, but I think it will be fine. I will take Ruffles with me to pick her up (the vet said I can take her home this week, but the rescue said I should pick her up in a few weeks, so I’m not sure when we are getting her). As long as they don’t hate each other (which I somehow doubt), I will bring her home and start getting them together. I am going to keep her in Ruff’s old dog crate in the same room as Ruff and just do a little each day. I’ll also switch them each night as long as she can’t jump the x pen. I like the washing machine idea and I’ll probably try to put them in the tub together too. I wish I had pics of her, she’s almost like a tortie, but less random, she’s black and brown, small and very cute.

[Beka27]

If you can wait a few weeks, then wait a few weeks. This way THEY will give her meds and you won’t become the “bad guy” right off the bat, they will be watching to make sure she’s healing up well, and they will have her during the time when those hormones are decreasing. It will be much less stress on you that way.

[MooBunnay]

I’ve done a few car rides, and usually the bunnies are so nervous that no fights break out. I bet the rescue just wants to make sure that the bunny heals completely from the spay before you pick her up, that is a good idea because you also wouldn’t be able to start bonding the bunnies until she is completely healed. I didn’t know if you were familiar with the dryer method, so I just thought I would mention that it is just the same as the car ride method, except that you put the bunnies into a laundry basket or other box on top of the dryer while it is running. The machine shakes the box a bit so the bunnies get nervous and *hopefully* snuggle together. Also, just a side note, and you probably already thought of this, but put the dryer on the “no heat” mode because sometimes the dryer will heat up the laundry room and the bunnies in their little laundry basket on top of the dryer can get a bit warm.

[Kokaneeandkahlua]

Yeh I am a huge proponent of the car ride-I don’t see how they possibly could fight! You’ll want to have someone watching them and someone driving-you don’t want to be driving distracted of course But I think it works wonders.

[Ruffles&Daisy]

Thanks, I will post more questions I’m sure once we get started. I read the bonding quest with Maryann and definitely learned a lot, but it also scared me a bit. The youtube videos helped a lot to know what types of behaviors to expect.

[BinkyBunny]

Car rides have done the trick most of the time except for my Bailey and Rucy. They would at first be nervous and then fight even when we were turning corners. This is VERY unusual, but it’s a good idea for the first few times to make sure someone is in the car with you to break up any back seat battles. Also, I recommend driving around a neighborhood because you have to stop and go and turn so much. Plus, if you need to pull-over quickly, it’s much easier.

[KweenElmer]

Call me stupid, but I don’t understand the logic behind carride bonding. Will someone explain it to me?

[ScooterandAnnette]

We tried the car ride bonding with all of ours – stuffing all 6 of them into the car to see if we could possibly bond them all together – and it didn’t work. They didn’t fight, they were quite well behaved with each other in the car, but afterwards was anohter story. Same with the dryer. We’d come to think we just couldn’t bond Keelie with anyone other than Kylie, but they were adopted together. But things are looking like that might not be the case! About to start another thread on that. But basically they didn’t go after each other at all in the car, everything was nice and calm then.
– Annette

[Beka27]

The point of car (or washing machine) bonding is to stress/scare the bunnies so they will turn to each other for comfort, therefore helping along the bonding process. If you go from stressful activity to normal activity, this will sometimes prevent a fight from breaking out immediately.

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