Hi everyone! I’m a frequent lurker on these forums and have just recently decided to become a member to find a solution to this problem.
Now, I know that there are many threads over marking, litter training, and fixing rabbits. But I just can’t seem to get an answer. Every time I find a forum with a question similar to mine, all of the replies are either “OMG my bunny does that too can someone post a solution??” or “get your rabbit fixed and it’ll stop.”
My situation is a little different. I have a New Zealand mix bunny named Petey. He’s around 9-10 months old right about now and I’ve had him since he was somewhere between 6-8 weeks old. I began litter training almost immediately and he took to it right away. He has always been good about using his litter box, albeit some poopies here and there but he has NEVER peed outside the litter box.
He is a free roam rabbit. He has free run of my bedroom for 12+ hours a day, I lock him in his cage at night and let him out as soon as my eyes open in the morning. 2 weeks ago I did some renovating in my bedroom and made bigger cages for my 5 guinea pigs, who also live in my bedroom with me. I moved his cage to a completely new spot under my desk, I figured since he likes to lay under there he would be okay if I made that his enclosure, despite it being a little bit smaller than the cage he had previously. His cage was on the floor at the foot of my bed where two of my guinea pigs are living now. I know that the changes would distress him and he would be confused about it but he was going to get over it. That’s when these problems started.
His litter had poops and pee in it so he could associate his scent with the new area, he would not go near it unless he had to go. Then he warmed up to the cage a bit and things seemed just fine. A couple days after this he hopped up on my bed with me and dropped at least 25-30 poops. It’s typical of him to lay in bed with me and drop one or two poops at the foot of my bed by accident so this was shocking. I shooed him away, cleaned it up, thought it was over. It kept happening more and more and it was becoming tiresome. Just as I thought it couldn’t get worse, he backed up and peed on the very edge of the foot of my bed. It was a tiny patch so I cleaned it up and left it as is. I thought that was it, but just the other day my mom came into my room and said it smelled horrible and we couldn’t find the source of the smell. I happened to be laying in bed where the smell was the strongest. It turns out he had been peeing all over my bed while I wasn’t in the room. I’ve had to wash my sheets 3 times within 48 hours because he keeps peeing all over it.
It almost seems like he’s doing it to spite me too. The second time I witnessed him do it, I had been loving on him for a couple minutes and when I sat up, he wasted no time turning around and blasting almost a foot across my bed barely missing me by an inch. It was like he was trying to mark ME.
But at the same time he still lets me hand feed him and he’ll come to beg for treats. Recently he has been noticeably less affectionate with me. I’m lucky if I get a minute just to pet him in his favorite spots before he turns and hops away from me.
Now, the last time I took Petey in to see the vet was about a month or two ago. He had been seen by another vet (primary one wasn’t available and the substitute was not experienced with any exotics) because of an emergency a while back, he was diagnosed with E. Cunniculi and had to undergo a 3 week treatment (at home) on different medications. During this followup with the primary, it was discovered that Petey has an unusually low heart rate. This truly stumped the vet because aside from his heart rate, Petey was perfectly healthy and active. He still isn’t sure why his heart rate is so low but this is the number one reason why I can’t get him fixed. Going under anesthesia will most likely kill him.
He doesn’t pee anywhere else except for my bed. Not my couch, my dresser, throw blankets, pillows, carpet, nothing. Just my bed.
He has food immediately next to the litter box. Hay on one end for him to eat while he’s sitting in it. He has always used paper based bedding as litter, the brands have varied but have never been drastically different from one another. I’ve build a pen to keep him confined to the half of the room where he can’t access my bed, but he is determined to get to it. He’s broken out of it multiple times just to get up there and pee on my bed. I have used a water/vinegar mix on the end of the bed where he started spraying and he doesn’t pee down there anymore, just at the side where I have my stuffed animals up against a wall. I have sprayed my entire mattress down with the vinegar mix to get the smell and stains out, but I’m afraid that once the sheets are back on it he’ll break out and pee on it again. Is there anything else I can do? I can’t get him fixed and I refuse to give him up, what other tactics can I use in the event he breaks out again? Will he grow out of this at some point? Is he mad at me for changing the cages? He happens to be peeing on the side of my bed my boyfriend likes to nap on and one of his hoodies that he hasn’t worn in months. He’s currently away playing hockey and hasn’t laid in my bed for almost a month. Is he being territorial over whatever is left of my boyfriend’s scent?
I’m so sorry this post is so long lol, I like to give everybody as much detail as possible so no one is scrambling for information