Cash Won, We Lost

[hiskatey93]

Okay so for litter training Cash has most certainly won. We have been defeated and given up on it. He’s a year and a half, going on two years this December. Never been liter trained. 

We tried to litter train him in the cage. Nope. He will hold it in until we take him out. Put him in an Xpen. He’ll hold it until he can’t, ignore the litterbox and then rebelliously lay in it.

And just poop everywhere. We think it might be because of his age and never being litter trained before. We pretty much have completely given up hope on litter training him.

Also admittedly his cage was a bit too small for him. We weren’t expecting him in all honesty. He was a birthday gift from a friend and a total surprise. And money has been tight so we have not had a chance to make a large cage for him.

He loves our computer room. Loves it. Hates his cage. So we bound all the cords, although he has never chewed on a single cord since he has lived with us, and now his cage is our computer room. He has a box castle for playtime, a digging box, his litter tray ((which is still ignored. Maybe 1/10 times he will go and pee in it.)) When we are home and around we will let him all over, and he only goes potty in the computer room ((Kind of a start :/ )) and we were able to put down large black rugs over our cream carpet to help with the clean up and not damage our rugs. Overall he seems content with the new set up.

And when I say he hates his cage… I mean all I will hear is thumping constantly, him chewing at the bars, body slamming against the locked door to try and open it. This is all new since his being neutered two weeks ago. Maybe cause of the confinement due to his after surgery issues? We had to keep him caged for a whole week without time to be let out. :/

So he has won. And admittedly since his taking over the computer room he is tons more lovable, always trying to get our attention and snuggling. I can deal with poop cleanup and a bottle of resolve every day to have a happy, loving bunny.

[JackRabbit]

You must be a saint! I wouldn’t totally give up on the litterbox yet, especially if he was just neutered 2 weeks ago. Maybe after his hormones calm down in a couple more weeks he’ll get the message if you do the pee papertowel, put the poops in the litterbox, and vinegar/water the pee spots.

[BunnyBrigade]

I would Cash sometime for his litter training. Especially if he has been recently neutered. Also, does Cash have more than one litter box he can chose from? A friend’s bunny will only pee in one litter box and poo in another. Maybe Cash is like that.

[Sarita]

Have you put out a litter box in the computer room? Just curious if you’ve done that and he still says “no”.

[Stickerbunny]

He’s only been neutered 2 weeks, he’s still hormonal (he could still get a female bunny pregnant) and litter training shouldn’t even really begin to be expected to be effective until his hormones are out of his system (an additional 2 weeks). Rabbits who are hormonal are very hard to train, because they want to mark. Plus, he had those complications with his surgery, so his behavior should be off a bit. I would be a bit off as well if my incision opened up and I had to stay locked in a little carrier to avoid it happening again! Give him some time to calm down.

Buns can be litter trained because we manipulate their instinct to keep their living area relatively clean. You say he holds it while in his cage and the cage isn’t very large. It’s possible he doesn’t want to soil his living area and a larger area would help this.

I would be patient a few weeks, put a couple of litter boxes around the computer room and make notes of where he pees the most. Rabbits kinda choose where the box is, we don’t. Wherever he pees the most, move the boxes to. Once his hormones calm down in a few weeks, be very strict about cleaning up after him, putting all his stray poop into the box and if he pees outside soak it up in a paper towel and put it in the box too. Be sure to clean all accidents up with vinegar/water (50/50) to remove the smell, resolve won’t do it and he’ll still think any area he marks smells like it’s the litter box. Has to be something that will dissolve the pee (and oil from the poop marking), so something acidic. Nature’s miracle works too, as it is specifically designed for amonia based urine removal.

It’s possible you may need to overdo the litter boxes to get him to start using it. For example, when I first started trying to get my two to use the boxes at all as a bonded pair (they totally forgot litter habits when I bonded them), I put down SIX litter boxes in ONE room. They had chosen so many different places to mark, one or two just wasn’t going to cut it. Two entire walls of my room were nothing but litter boxes in every inch. As they started picking favorites, I reduced the number, now we have four and if I go any lower than that, they will just go where the missing boxes were. I also had to block off the dark, covered corners because it was too tempting for them (closets especially). They still aren’t perfect, but they do use the box mostly… and the mess they leave outside is generally directly outside the box, so I put saran wrap down to protect the floor.

Another member once had to line their bunnies ENTIRE area with litter boxes, so the bun could only access litter boxes and not floor.

Moral of these stories: Get creative. They aren’t all easy to train. But, I don’t think any are totally untrainable. I adopted Powder as an adult, he didn’t have a litter box in the shelter, he had a metal grate under his feet and a slide out tray. Stickers was in a cage covered in wood shavings, with no litter box. You just have to get them into the habit of going in the box, they are very smell oriented so it’s key to make the litter boxes smell like their messes (clean litter box is just a bed, put some mess in them yourself) and make sure no other area does.

[hiskatey93]

Okay so he has 5 litterboxes. Ignores every single one of them. Throws them. Refuses to go in any of them. And it is irritating. He doesn’t potty in one spot. He goes everywhere.

Even peeing. The location changes every time he pees so it isn’t like I can say “Oh he goes here so put the box there.” He’s been with us for two months, has pissed on every square inch of carpet in the apartment, but still does not go in the same spot. Which makes placing a litterbox nearly impossible. He wants every inch fo the place to be a litterbox.
I’ve tried pee soaked napkins in the box with some poos in it to. He dumps it on the floor.

I’ve neutralized all of the carpet using a vinegar wash over every inch of the carpets in my apartment, and then steam cleaned them using pet friendly stain removers. Pale carpets get stained easily by his urine. /

We have been trying to litter train him since June when we got him. He’s a stubborn ball of fluff that does not want to listen.
I’m not sure if it is hormonal. He has changed since neutering, but he is so much more loving and snuggly. No aggressiveness or dominance, only snuggles and lots of licks, which are new. I used to be bitten and humped, not snuggled and loved.

We have been able to teach him to come to us when we call his name or snap our fingers all in three or so days.So I know he is smart, and can figure this out. I think he’s just being a stubborn little ass honestly.

The only time he gets aggressive is when we clean up after him. Pulling out the pee in the carpets, picking up his poop…. We are charged and bitten. We now put him in the bathroom when we clean up after him, or do it when he is napping in his hutch.

[Stickerbunny]

“The only time he gets aggressive is when we clean up after him. Pulling out the pee in the carpets, picking up his poop…. We are charged and bitten. We now put him in the bathroom when we clean up after him, or do it when he is napping in his hutch. ”

That is just more evidence he’s hormonal territorial marking. As I said, you can’t expect litter box training to be successful yet. He still has sperm in his system and his hormones are imbalanced. It’s very hard to train a hormonal bunny.

For your pale carpets, mine are cream colored and nature’s miracle removes urine stains by just spritzing a bit on the carpet, letting it sit a minute and then pushing down (do not scrub, just push and absorb) paper towels or a wash cloth to soak up the urine out of it. It removes the orange pee stains my buns sometimes leave on my carpets. Over cleaning can make marking worse, actually, so steaming with a cleaner will most likely cause further marking. Any time I clean my buns floor with a chemical cleaner, they make sure to let me know they hate the smell and will mark all over it.

You can also try, when you have the money to change his cage up, making him an x-pen setup and lining the floor with litter boxes. If he gets used to using a box, the habit should stick. Sometimes you just have to be more stubborn than they are. Stickers has been caught peeing outside her box, stopped, ran to her litterbox and sat and stared at me. She knows for a fact she isn’t supposed to. But, I am much more stubborn than she is and she’s getting better about it.

Edit: Another thing to maybe try is different litters. Powder wouldn’t use WSP for the longest time, he didn’t like it for some reason. He would only use paper litter. I started Stickers on carefresh, because it’s the closest to shavings. 

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