Territory or something else?

[Slush]

At first I thought Slush was showing signs of being unhappy on another post in regards to Slush going potty outside of his cage, on closer inspection, it would seem Slush only does poo’s outside of his cage when my partner is home. My partner was away for a few days, I had a long weekend off work and so Slush has had a lot of time out of his cage and there has been no poo’s at all. Today is the first time in almost a week that my partner has spent time with Slush outside of his cage and there has been quite a few pellets outside of his cage. Could it be that as he is a male it’s a territorial thing? Or does my partner just need to bond with him a bit more? 

It’s not that Slush is unhappy when my partner is around as he binkies and flops all the same and shows all the same affections either way, the only addition is the poo’s. Everytime Slush sniffs my partner he seems to ‘go’ but this is only one pellet at a time. I find it odd that he does not do this when my partner is away making me thing it might be a territory thing. Any advise on this would be appreciated.

[Vincent]

General territorial poos have an oil on them for the territorial scent so you can just check said outside poos if they smell oniony and have a bit of a shine to them then they were put there territorally

It sounds more territorial since he still does binkies though but you never can be sure

If he isn’t neutered yet later after you neutured him generally buns get less territorial so he’ll probably stop with territoral pooping if that’s he case (though sometimes fixed bund are still territorial it’s less likely)

[Slush]

Oooh I wondered about the shiny ones as they are just occasional, I’ll double check them to see then but yeah it definitely sounds like it, no he’s not fixed yet as he’s still a baby, I was considering waiting til he’s around 6 months? Out of babyhood. I’m new to all of this, I was going to see how his behaviour is if he’s pretty much the same I’ll leave him be til then, if he gets aggressive and does more territorialising then i’ll consider it sooner but i’ve only had him a couple of weeks so I don’t really want to put him through the stress just yet.

[Vincent]

Yeah six months is usually a pretty good time if they don’t become overly agressive so I agree with your plan of action!

Maybe he feels more territorial cause your partner is less known though to him so bonding more to your bun would probably help him feel less need to be territorial around your parent also

[Slush]

Oh, I thought right then about the 6 months area then It also gives me time to get some time off work so I can care for him and make sure he is eating and such.

Yeah I thought as much. I’ve been checking through the course of the night and they arn’t really shiny but are smelly, plus he was doing them in the same spot I noticed so it is definitely territorial, when clearing up I am showing them to him and gently but firmly forcing him to watch me put them in his litterbox so he knows thats where I want him to do his business. If it’s all territorial it probably won’t work but for the others it may help reduce the amount as over an hour or so there can be quite a lot

Thanks for the advise

[Author]

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