Bonding Progress – Dirk & Lanna

[FewPeach]

I’m sorry, but this got really long. I felt like I had to explain their background, and I hope it doesn’t wast your time.

 TLDR: In a small bonding space girl ignores boy and allows him to hump her with only vocal protestations. In open space, girl runs away from boy if he shows any interest, but if he ignores her she follows him around or gets huffy. No grooming is occurring, but they have never fought.

Background on me:

I had a bunny when I was younger and decided that I finally had time in my life for a pet again. My original pet bunny was a Dutch who was best friends with our border collie so I have no experience in bonding rabbits.

The Buns:  

In January I adopted a rabbit from a local shelter. We named her Lanna. She is a gray dwarf of unknown breed and I was warned of cage and food aggression. I never saw any aggression with her area and her food aggression is mostly dancing around you and grunting if you are too slow to put it down. She has bitten us, hard enough to draw blood when she felt that we were not feeding her treats quickly enough. Lanna hates being picked up, but is now at a point where she will hop up to me and accept head pats for an arbitrary amount of time before growling and rearing to signal she is done. I guess her personality is curious, guarded and prickly. Every time she sees something new her ears go back immediately and she lunges forward, but then the ears come straight up and she sniffs it without a care in the world. She is very talkative: grunting, growling, and squeaking are her most common noises. I am seeing big strides in her behavior and am hoping that she will continue to open up.  

Halfway through the month, a pet rabbit was left on one of my parent’s neighbor’s porch. My mother volunteered to take the bunny in, and immediately gave me a call.

You can see where this is going.

When I brought Dirk in from the car and we put him into his cage, I noticed that his face was not symmetric and he was drooling. We went to the vet who found a massive ear infection that had caused a partial facial paralysis. After two weeks of hard core antibiotics he had improved enough to just require ear drops and ear flushing. We got him neutered at the beginning of February. Dirk is a very sweet mini lop whose main joy in life is eating. He enjoys hopping up onto the back of the couch and surveying his kingdom. Nothing phases him other than when I cook at which point he runs and hides under a cardboard box and thumps until the icky smells go away. He will come investigate when I’m vacuuming and stick his face at the wand. Dirk hums quite a bit: when we get home and he hears us, he will run to the edge of his enclosure and hum until we come give him a pat. He would accept constant head pats if we were willing to give them and will snuggle up on my fiancee’s lap for a cuddle session before hopping off to flop on the floor.

I had kept the two rabbits completely separate for the first two weeks we had Dirk. I don’t know if they even knew there was another bunny in the house. We decided to convert a spare bedroom into a “bunny room” so that rabbit paraphernalia wasn’t strewn all over the house. I covered the floor with a tarp and then some carpet remnants so the buns would have traction. We divided the room in half with a 4-foot wire fence and hung some towels up so they had private areas. I figured that they would at least keep each other company while we were out of the house. Dirk has some scars on his ears that look like another bunny had attacked him at one point and Lanna is so fussy that I figured she would not be a good candidate for bonding. Instead, they bonked noses and started chasing each other along the fence.

Dirk fell in love as deeply as his little bunny heart would let him. Lanna, surprisingly, liked having company. She enjoyed sitting at the fence, waiting for him to notice her and race over before she would zoom off with her tail wagging. I put additional litter boxes next to the fence and they would sit and munch hay side by side for hours. The only thing that Lanna did not appreciate was when Dirk would run up to her humming. At that point she would run off and hide.

It wasn’t all hay dates and apple slices. We put them in the same room before he got neutered. Poop was everywhere, Dirk sprayed constantly and Lanna would pee near the fence to claim what was hers. When Lanna wanted alone time, Dirk would start thumping because he couldn’t see her. She also began to display some territorial behavior to my fiancee, but would accept my daily cleaning with no fuss. They both got to play in our living/dining room for daily exercise on their own during this time. Our girl would run around and binky, often stopping in to visit Dirk before going back to playing. Dirk had almost no interest in leaving the room, but if we closed the door he would relax a bit.

After Dirk was neutered, he was much calmer within a week. He went back to using a litter box and his side of the room stayed relatively clean. Lanna got a third litter box and mostly contained her pee to those areas, but still covered the floor with droppings. The rabbits continued to show lots of interest in each other and would lie along the fence in parallel. I started doing some research and figured that we could try bonding them. I did not realize that we were in for a comedy of errors.

Last week, we started with a car ride so that they would both be scared and just snuggle together. Dirk decided that day that car rides are fun and was only interested in humping poor, mortified Lanna. By the end of the ride he was periscoping and trying to explore the car in between showing his affection. The next day we set up a 4×6 xpen in our tiled kitchen. We put them in with just a tunnel for hiding. Dirk immediately started chasing Lanna about, so we turned on the oven to make him more uncomfortable. As soon as he smelled the hot metal he jumped the fence and took off to his cage, traumatized.

I did some more research: apparently smaller spaces can work better. I reduced the xpen to 4×3 and put them in the next day. She still tried to take off, but Dirk pinned her in a corner and humped her. She started making noises like a guinea pig – like a high-pitched squeaky croon. After 10 seconds I pushed him off and she escaped. This routine continued a few times until he calmed down and stretched out. Lanna pressed herself into a corner and ignored him. I ended the session by sliding him next to her and administering head pats.

It has been a week and I have since moved bonding sessions to a 2×3 dog crate. When I put them in, Dirk will immediately hump her and then will lick her ears and back while sitting on top of her. Lanna will growl and squeak when he first mounts, but she never really fights back. She barely seems to interact. When he puts his head down in front of her she growls and runs to the opposite side of the cage and then hunkers down. Dirk will nudge her, dig at her and she just sits there. He will finally stretch out next to her and press his face against hers while making chattering noises. 

I have also let them out for free time together. If Dirk runs up to her, she will poop and take off. She is twice as fast as him, so he can’t catch her. I would think that she hates him, but if Dirk isn’t looking at her, she will go up behind him and sniff his rump and then take off when he turns around. If he is stretched out, she will go and lie down next to him until he moves. I have seen them lie nose-to-nose, but no grooming occurs. If my fiancee is petting Dirk, she will charge them both, grunting with her ears back.

Is this bonding going well? They have never fought, there has never been any fur flying. I think they are both trying to be boss and neither of them will submit. Should I stick to one space exclusively? She seems so miserable in the tiny cage, but they actually interact. He is always more relaxed after he humps her and when he is relaxed, she is willing to approach him outside the cage. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

[Madelline]

Hi and welcome

Your situation sounds a bit like mine. When it came to bonding my bunnys I found that they were both more comfortable and bonded better when they were in an open space.If the female feels trapped and can’t get away from the mail she’ll become scared and won’t want to interact with him. Twix my female, was much more comfortable when she was able to get away if she needed to. Eventually they were able to both calm down and begin to groom each other more often. It seems like your girl just needs to get to know Dirk a little bit better but on her own time. When it comes to dominance issues I just let my bunny work it out amongst themselves.letting them have more space to rome definitely helped with that.

[Madelline]

Hi and welcome

Your situation sounds a bit like mine. When it came to bonding my bunnys I found that they were both more comfortable and bonded better when they were in an open space.If the female feels trapped and can’t get away from the mail she’ll become scared and won’t want to interact with him. Twix my female, was much more comfortable when she was able to get away if she needed to. Eventually they were able to both calm down and begin to groom each other more often. It seems like your girl just needs to get to know Dirk a little bit better but on her own time. When it comes to dominance issues I just let my bunny work it out amongst themselves.letting them have more space to rome definitely helped with that.

[Madelline]

Also if he starts to hump her, try to comfort her by petting her head and don’t let him do it for very long. If she starts to squirm, wiggle or make those squeaking sounds gently push him off. Be carfull not to pull him off because sometimes they bite their back and that will hurt her if you pull him off fast.

[Author]

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