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Forum BONDING Bonding Trixie and Oscar

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    • ljamos
      Participant
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        I decided to make a thread for this bonding process, because it’s my first time bonding and I think I’m going to have lots of questions along the way. I was hoping these two would make it easy, but it doesn’t look like they’re going to. Trixie is our first rabbit; she’s a 1-year-old spayed female who is very independent and kind of skittish.  Oscar is a 5-year-old neutered male who is more easy-going. We adopted him from a family who no longer had enough time to take care of him. An additional factor with him is that he has sore hocks that aren’t open, cracked or bleeding, but I am treating those separately and have to consider them. The family we got Oscar from has said that if I don’t think these two will work out I can call and they will take him back; but he’s a really sweet guy and I am really hoping I can find a way to make this work.

        Oscar came to our house this weekend, and he has his own cage close to Trixie’s NIC cage. I’ve been keeping her on the lower level of her cage so she has to stay in eye contact of him. She is very interested in his cage and wants to sniff around it and has pawed at his bars as though she wants to get in, but if he comes near her cage she scuffles at her bars and floors, and she chews at the bars as though she wants to bite him. I put one of her stuffed animals in his cage when he arrived and rubbed a new stuffed animal all over him (including under his chin) and put it with her. Neither of them have had any aggression towards the animals; I’m going to switch the animals out today to “refresh” the scents. I had planned to switch litter boxes and then cages but have not done this yet due to the sore hocks.

        For the meetings, we did two meetings on Saturday when he came home and 3 meetings Sunday and yesterday. The first meeting was in our bathroom. It went ok; there wasn’t really any fighting, nipping, biting, etc. He wanted to mount her a lot, and she wasn’t interested but she wasn’t aggressive with him when he tried it. She did run away and there was some chasing.  She also mounted him once. At this point though, he is pretty comfortable being around her; he will groom himself, explore, and sniff her. She, however, doesn’t trust him at all and is completely through with his attempts to mount her. She spends most of her time crouched in the corner and each time he comes near her she whips her head and/or entire body around so he can’t come up behind her. When he does attempt to mount her at this point she gets aggressive. In our last two meetings yesterday they each had some fur pulled out; no blood has been drawn yet. When he mounts her he does try to get ahold of her neck with his teeth. Last night he was also trying to stick his head underneath her stomach and nip her, which was a brand new behavior for him. I think part of my problem is that I am not sure how far I should let their skirmishes go before I squirt them or separate them manually so they can work out their dominance. I don’t want either of them to get seriously hurt, so I don’t know if I’m intervening too quickly.

        All the meetings have been in neutral places, including one yesterday in the bathtub. I’ve tried to end on a positive note, but by yesterday when I tried to get them together to lay next to each other to pet them they were running to get away from each other. I also tried smearing banana on their heads last night to get them to groom each other; he groomed her just fine but she wouldn’t touch him. I’ve tried giving them treats together; he eats his right away but she freezes up and won’t touch hers until he’s in the opposite corner.

        I know this is really long, but I feel like it’s getting worse instead of better, and I feel like I’ve read everything on the Internet and don’t know what to do. Help?


      • Beka27
        Participant
        16016 posts Send Private Message

          It sounds like you’re doing the right thing. It takes time, sometimes a month or two of daily bonding sessions.

          It’s okay to allow a little bit of humping. This is how they work out dominance.

          You don’t always have to intervene, but definitely stop them before it escalates to a full fight. Sometimes just putting something between them momentarily (like a piece of cardboard) is enough to break them up.


        • ljamos
          Participant
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            Thanks for responding Beka27! 

            I just finished a session with them that lasted for almost 2.5 hours. I was feeling pretty hopeful – Oscar groomed Trixie, there wasn’t any mounting or chasing, and Trixie actually groomed Oscar, which she’d never done before. Then, during the last 30 minutes, the mounting and chasing came back. They went from pleasant to aggressive pretty quickly. During their first scuffle I was able to get them separated with a couple squirts from the water bottle. During the second, and last, fight, I squirted them with the bottle, it escalated faster, and I had to physically separate them when they both went down on their sides. I kept them separate for a few minutes to calm them down, checked their tummies for any wounds (there was a big pile of fur but no skin, blood, or cuts that I could see), and then forced them to lie down side-by-side while I petted them. After that I put them both back in their cages. 

            One thing I noticed during the beginning of the session was that they were both presenting their heads for grooming at the same time and pressing their heads together, but neither seemed to want to give in first. Also, once Trixie started grooming Oscar, he stopped grooming her and wouldn’t do it any more.

            Should I go back to shorter sessions, or try some sort of stress bonding (like a box on top of the washing machine)?


          • LittlePuffyTail
            Moderator
            18092 posts Send Private Message

              I would go back to shorter sessions. You want to gradually build up the time they spend together. You can always do two short sessions during the day, if things are going well. And then build up to longer sessions as things progress. Try to always end at a positive time (as in not fighting).

              Presenting their heads for grooming is a dominance behavior. The dominant bunny (or bunny who wants to be dominant) presents and expects the other (submissive) bun to groom him. They are obviously trying to figure out who is going to be the boss. This is perfectly normal. In a situation where they are both being stubborn and both want to be dominant, bonding will take longer because they need to work out the boss bun issue before they can be friends.

              Like I said, I would try shorter sessions and then you can decide whether you need stress bonding or not.

              Sounds like things are going pretty good, so keep it up.

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          Forum BONDING Bonding Trixie and Oscar