New Bad Behaviors?

[Mia Nguyen]

Hi! New poster here!

Ten is a two year old neutered male that I adopted from the shelter about a year ago to bond with my two year old female, Darcy, who I had only rescued a month before him from a bad hoarding case. They bonded perfectly and were free to roam a spare bedroom after a month of adjustment and despite Ten dropping pellets here and there, they were pretty much potty trained (Darcy is the poster child for potty trained bunnies ). A month and a half ago we moved into a new house. 

We’re now in an even larger room and Darcy is taking it like a champ. I did the whole introducing them to the place slowly by keeping them in their cage for a couple of days and then only letting them into a small section of the room for ten minutes, to an hour, to a few hours, and finally allowed them to start exploring more of the room for a few minutes at a time while looking for hidden food treasures. 

I still keep them penned to about a quarter of the room however because about two weeks after we moved in, after having no potty issues, Ten has started to pee outside of the litter boxes right next to them. I tried to get larger litter boxes, keeping hay in them, even rewarding him when he’s even just sitting in one but every once in a while he’ll pee right into the carpet. I’ve cleaned the areas thoroughly with vinegar and enzyme cleaner. He has his two favorite corners and goes there. I sectioned them off for about a month and after no accidents for that month I figured it’d be safe. The first thing he did was go in those spots. I sectioned them off again but would really like to have no doggy gates or boxes piled up in random corners of my room. 

What really bothers me is that he bit my foot for the first time yesterday. He’s always been very careful with his teeth and even when fishing for the smallest piece of pellet food from my fingers in able to lick it up with no issue. I was sitting with the buns in their space and Ten hopped up, I petted him a few times, he turned, and had to either hop over my foot in order to get to the other side of the space or simply take the long way around. He head bumped my foot a couple of times in the nice way, sniffed it, gave me a good firm warning nip, and hopped happily away. He’s also starting to get a lot more skittish and sometimes even acts scared when I first walk into the room.

I know it doesn’t sound too bad but I really don’t want this behavior to escalate as I know once Ten forms a habit, he isn’t breaking it. Do you guys have any advice?

[LBJ10]

It sounds like the new place has made him feel territorial. There probably isn’t much you can do except limit his space. You could try adding more litter boxes too. Perhaps things need to smell more like him before he will feel confident in his territory.

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