Humping and Spraying

[SnickerBun]

Okay, so my male lion head-dwarf mix, Snickers, has always been best friends with my small dog, Lily. Up until very recently I had had no problems with them together. He would only circle her and give hugs and get excited to chase her around. Only very recently (seriously, only days ago), Snickers began trying to mount Lily. Nothing I do will make him stop. I put him in my room for a while and bring him back out and he goes right back to it. Then, he was on my bed and he tried to chew on my chords, so I shooed him away and he sprayed towards me! He’s never behaved like this before. I believe he’s 6 years old and I’ve had him for five years and he’s never been bad like this.

I’ve already considered nuetering him. My question is, is there a better option? And if he is six, is the neuter riskier now because he’s older? I don’t know what to do. I never got him neutered because I’ve never had any problems with him before this.
Thanks in advance!

[Sleepy]

Our last bridge bun was a 6-7 year old when he hit ‘puberty’ in his last year. Like Snickers, Whisky never had any major problems with spraying or humping until then. Unfortunately, as we’ve learned, it’s behavior that can last for months.

We didn’t neuter Whisky because we were worried of his age, since our first vet wasn’t confident about it, but I think you should be able to neuter Snickers okay as long as you have a bunny saavy vet. We talked to our current vet about process out of curiousity if we’d done differently with Whisky, and she assured us he most likely would’ve been fine since he was a healthy bunny when hormones hit him. As long as Snickers is in good shape, it’s a simple operation since it’s just the snips and everyone will be much happier for it.

[jerseygirl]

It would be worth chatting about with the vet. The changes may indicate some changes within him. I personally think 6 is not too old for a neuter. You can do some pre surgery bloodwork if your prefer, to get an idea on how he’ll cope with the anaesthetic.

My desexed buck started to display these same hormonal behaviours around age 6. It’s something I seen reported by other owners also. There speculation about it being due to adrenal issue but it’s not something that is straightforward to test in rabbits, apparently.

[jerseygirl]

Also, any changes with Lily or anyone else he is around alot could possibly trigger some unusual behaviour in him..

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