Sorry this is long….
Background: So Blu is my active spunky fearless (unless you pet him when he’s not ready for it…) bun who loves to run around more than eat or anything else. The typical routine at night is to open up his pen from one side and he darts out before I can get it all the way open…sprints through the kitchen to the family room where he wreaks havoc, or plays…haha. Although he’d love to play and be out of his pen all day he tends to run back when it’s close to his time being up. He and Oreo both sort of do this…they are so good about routines (usually). I set a timer for both (they run separate times) and usually around the right time they both run back to their pens on their own … I’ve bragged about how well they are trained at this! Without any coercing from me too…for most of the time at least.
Odd Behavior: Anyhow, Blu started doing this two nights ago out of nowhere… I open up his pen he gets super excited, goes to dart out but stops short of leaving his “area” and sits there. He tries to go forward and sniffs everywhere and scampers back to his spot and sits again. The first night I thought he was just tired still and needed to wake up before coming out, this happens every once in a while…but it was like I had to coax him out to play…which is very very odd. But once he came out he didn’t want to go back to his pen! It seems like it’s that one spot between the kitchen and his pen that he’s afraid to cross? He was on his way back to his pen on his own and when he got to the “spot” he scampered away in the opposite direction like he got spooked by something. … I had to put him in his carrier the past few nights just to get him back in his pen because he would NOT leave the family room and I gave him an extra hour to go back on his own! I don’t know what happened in the kitchen but he’s afraid of it for some weird reason… He will cross it eventually but it takes some coaxing and he doesn’t run around in there like he used to…
Everything else is normal for him, activity levels, eating, pooping, behavior, etc…it’s just this one “scary spot”. Any idea what I can do? I guess I could clean it to see if there’s some unwanted smell? We had a big party here last weekend, but he came out normally the first few nights after it, so I don’t think it could have been anything from that?…I don’t know…but it’s getting frustrating that he’s not following his routine since I’m limited on time with getting both of them to have enough free time as it is …
Any ideas? Thanks in advance…