Help needed with new trio

[a llama]

Hello everybody,

If any of you were not aware before, in my previous post, I had mentioned that I was planning on adding a third rabbit to the two boys that I already have at home. That being said, I just adopted a female Flemish Giant with brown and white spots named Annabelle last Saturday. A worker at the shelter I adopted her from mentioned that she was originally a meat rabbit from Texas whom she decided to save with several other rabbits. We did bring Oreo and Ben (my two boys) to do some bunny dating and make sure that the new rabbit would not cause any problems with them. Annabelle’s reaction to the boys was amazing. She just saw the boys in the container and acted like everything was completely normal. And the best thing is that when she got scared for some reason, she immediately went to the boys’ companionship for protection. After she had calmed down a bit, it turned out that all three rabbits were squished together in the container and none of them had any sort of problem with that. We tried taking Annabelle out so that we could do some more testing with other rabbits, but none of them made any movements and just sat there snuggling with each other. Because of this, me and my family pretty much agreed that this was the best option in terms of a rabbit that would bond with Oreo and Ben. We kept the container that they were all snuggling in open while we did the adoption paperwork (Annabelle was taking a nap with them at this point). None of them moved, and really all we needed to do was close up the container and take them all home in that single container (we had originally planned to take her home in a separate one).

Anyway, Annabelle has been with me a few days now and at first she did not allow any sort of touching or handling, meaning that she would just lunge at my hand if I tried. I did some work with her, and now is pretty much at home with me and her environment. Now that she seemed to be comfortable, I put the boys’ cages and her cage next to each other to begin pre-bonding yesterday. Oreo didn’t really care about how Annabelle was his neighbor, but I did see some changes in Ben. I’m not sure if its a coincidence or not, but all of the sudden Ben is flopping all the time! Before Annabelle had come, Ben usually never flopped in his cage. Even when he was playing, it was rare to see him flop. Is this because of Annabelle’s presence or is it a coincidence like I had mentioned before? As usual, Ben is still extremely territorial to both Oreo and Annabelle. Whenever I had let either of them out to free roam, Ben was always aggressively cage-rattling at closest place to the free-roaming rabbit. I was doing some research on pre-bonding and I had read that I should be looking for when all three of them act like its normal to be in each others’ territories. Is Ben’s cage-rattling behavior relevant to when I can start direct bonding sessions with the three? In other words, should Ben be stopping the behavior before I start bonding sessions with them? That’s all I have so far, but I’ll be posting again if anything else comes up. Thanks for the help!

[DanaNM]

That sounds lovely!

The rattling is a territorial thing, so you should wait for that to calm down before proceeding. I can never tell whether it’s because of the bunny, or whether they are just unhappy that they don’t have full free-roam!

Swapping sides regularly should help.

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

[a llama]

Another thing that I forgot to say, the worker there at the shelter mentioned some things that she does with her rabbits that really goes against most of the advice I’ve seen from people on this forum. I would like to know why she said these things, and if they are really fine to do with my rabbits. Anyway, one thing she said was that letting the rabbits see each other while I’m cleaning their cages would be fine, as long as I am constantly creating a distraction and preventing them from fighting. Before she said this, people have told me that I should not let any of the three see each other in their territories at all or in any circumstance other than if they are actually bonded. Now that the shelter’s caretaker is telling me this, since she is a rabbit expert after all, I am not sure what is correct and what is not. Another thing she told me is that I should allow fur-pulling during bonding for a few seconds before stopping the behavior, because they need to get whatever they were disagreeing about sorted out. The only acception to this being that if they are wounding each other. Again, I had previously been stopping any sort of biting at the instant I saw it happening, but now that the caretaker is saying I should do differently, I am confused.

If anyone doesn’t know from my any of my other posts, one of my boys (Ben), absolutely despises being picked up. When I first got him, this was quite easy to see and I learned the lesson with an arm-full of scratches. I posted about this on the forum and people told me to just transport him in his litter box. This has caused Ben to be more hesitant when coming into his litter box during play time, but it’s better than hurting myself or scaring Ben. However, when I mentioned that Ben didn’t like being picked up to the shelter worker, she became skeptical if this was actually true or not, since her belief was that a rabbit could be trained to be picked up. She tried picking Ben up, and as usual, he tried struggling out of her arms. Instead of dropping him, she just shifted him into a “hugging” position where Ben’s feet were gripping to her chest. While Ben was in this position, he actually stopped struggling and seemed to stop shaking or breathing heavily. If I am not mistaken, the fact that Ben was calm while the worker was hugging him means that previously I was just picking him up in a way he didn’t like. That being said, the worker mentioned that I could train Ben to accept being handled by me. The next day I decided to take her advice and try lifting Ben off the ground for brief moments and giving him treats right afterwards. Even though he accepts the treats after he’s done shaming me with the “flicky” feet motion, he will be kinda skittish around me for hours or up to days afterwards. I explained how Ben is skittish around me and how Ben gets scared and struggles when I pick him up, but she said that those things are normal and would eventually go away. My question is, should I be training him or not? Even though it is much more convenient for me to transport Ben by picking him up, when I limit his movement and scare him like that, I really feel bad for him and how it ruins our peaceful relationship together.

[DanaNM]

I’ll try to answer all of these questions!

Regarding bonding:
– On this forum, it’s usually recommend to “pre-bond”, which means housing the rabbits a few inches apart, and swapping who is in what cage daily (or swapping items if that’s not practical). So seeing each other is definitely recommended! I’m not sure if you meant actually interacting? It usually isn’t advisable to allow the rabbits to physically interact unless you are in a bonding session in neutral space. There are some cases where they are fine to interact in each other’s territory, but it’s generally not recommended.
– Fur pulling is a bit debated, but I think more people agree that some fur pulling is OK, and sometimes necessary. Not all pairs will need to do this to establish dominance, but often some level of lunging, chasing, mounting, boxing, and fur pulling will happen before they establish dominance. The key is to be sure that nothing escalates to a fight, and that the biting isn’t so hard to break the skin. Tight circling and extended chasing often leads to a fight, but sometimes a short chase (1-3 seconds) with a fur pull resolves itself, provided the space you are working in is large enough for them to get away from each other. There is no single way to bond rabbits, so that is why there is seemingly conflicting info out there, even among very experienced bonders. You’ll likely have to base your strategy off what seems to work for your buns. If do think that immediately jumping on them at every nip and fur pull can slow the process down though.

Regarding picking up:
-The more secure the bunny feels, the less likely they are to struggle, and they will feel safer. I think rabbits can become used to being handled, and they will prefer to be held in a way that is secure.
You can practice handling him in that way, but I don’t really think it will help your relationship with him to try to “train” him to like it. I usually only pick up my bunnies when necessary (nail trims, vet visits, etc.). I think you would be better served to practice the technique she showed you for when you need to pick him up, but to not just pick him up all the time. I think most people on this forum agree that picking up all the time doesn’t help your relationship with your bunny.
Quite a few people have their bunnies trained to go into their carriers, so that might be something to do instead!

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

[a llama]

It’s been a few days of pre-bonding and I have a few updates to share about everything. First, as Annabelle is the new bunny, I am not completely aware of her full personality just yet. I’m not sure if this is because she is still getting used to my home (she seems pretty relaxed and very playful), but, unlike my two boys, Annabelle hasn’t really been paying attention to territory much at all. When I switch her cage with one of the boy’s cages, usually she will be chinning everything for a minute or two before she returns to her normal relaxed behavior. She hasn’t shown any sort of aggression to either of the boys and I haven’t even seen any territorial poops from her. So far, Annabelle is just really curious about everything and super playful (which is awesome).

However, when it comes to Ben and Oreo, things change a bit. They have been a couple of little trouble makers recently, especially because Ben is VERY territoral with the other two, even through the double-layered x-pen bars. Previously, I had the bars between their cages spaced at about 4 or 5 inches apart from each other. This seemed to create a problem with the boys, as it wasn’t uncommon for me to catch them chasing each other through the bars with raised tails, and in some cases, Oreo would even spray Ben in response to his aggression. Because of this, I would wake up in the morning to find Oreo’s spray absolutely everywhere and creating horrible smells. This was definitely not ideal, so I increased the space between their cages to around 10 inches. Luckily, this has been pretty well so far, but, if possible, I would like to know why Ben was getting aggressive through the cage bars in the first place and how I can work with him to reduce the behavior.

Also, when I move Oreo to one of the others’ cages, he does show territorial behaviors as usual. But, is territorial pooping a thing that should stop before I start actually bonding the three? I’ve heard that rabbits will pretty much mark everything with poop non-stop until they are all fully bonded. Other than the pooping and the chinning, Oreo will show signs of relaxation such as flopping and grooming.

[Sirius&Luna]

It’s normal and expected to see aggression during the first stages of prebonding. It’s not something you need to specifically work on – that’s why you’re doing the prebonding. But you won’t be ready to bond until you stop seeing the aggressive behaviour from Ben and Oreo. That might be a couple of weeks or it might be more than a month. You’ll just have to see how they go.

I wouldn’t worry too much about territorial pooping, that will likely continue until they’re bonded.

[Bianca]

First up – good on you for adopting! As someone who volunteers at a shelter with lots of rabbits – thank you!

I’ll try to address some of your points/questions:

1) The extra flopping from Ben is quite possibly him being a little passive aggressive. It’s a tricky some bunnies employ during pre bonding and bonding. Kind of a “look how happy and relaxed I am, I’m happy way happier than you and look at me now I’m happy and you aren’t as happy so haha!” I have 6 rabbits and two are passive aggressive during bonding, so it will be entertaining when I start pre bonding them as a group of 6. They both go passive aggressive to the point of over the top binkies with impressive head twists because “THAT’S HOW HAPPY I AM SO HAHA TO YOU!!” and then usually some over the top flopping so they end up on their backs with a head flick. And if the other rabbit doesn’t notice the flop, they get up and do it again until it is noticed!

2) Yes letting the rabbits see each other during pre bonding is a good thing, so long as they can’t touch until they are ready. That will come down to the individual rabbit. But I usually start pre bonding with the rabbits being able to see each other all the time, but access to a tunnel or hidey hole of some sort for each rabbit for privacy. One of my passive aggressive ones very happily flopped on her tunnel/bed thing and completely flattened it in the process of showing her future friend how happy she was.

3) Yup, a bit of fur pulling is normal and can be useful. If you always separate them from a small nip/fur pull it’s harder for them to establish dominance, and so the bond can take longer. In saying that, I don’t allow too much chasing or fur pulling at once. Again it depends on the rabbits in question. I’ve done a lot of bonding with different rabbits and some I separate/distract from fur pulling, nipping, chasing, etc very quickly because I know they will get angry and escalate to a fight. Others I have let go (with strict supervision in case it escalates) because I know the rabbits in question are far less likely to escalate it, and just need to get their fur pulling and nips out. I never, ever assume that they definitely won’t fight though and I am always on standby to be safe. It really does come down to individual rabbits though, but a little fur pulling is to be expected. So long as it is just a mouthful of fur and not blood and doesn’t escalate to a fight I don’t usually see it as a big deal.

4) Yes rabbits can be trained to be handled and picked up. But that doesn’t mean they will enjoy it. I spend a lot of time doing that at the rescue I volunteer at with the rabbits who are scared/aggressive/etc. They recently named one after me because I got her from the most aggressive/nervous rabbit in the shelter to a rabbit who will run up to pretty much anyone to be picked up. It feels like I’m talking to myself though, it’s kind of weird. But not every rabbit will have a turn-around like that. Many just go from scared/aggressive to tolerant of being picked up if they have to be. I like to have my own rabbits okay with being picked up for grooming/claws/vet/etc. But I don’t expect them to like being picked up for cuddles. Two of mine do love it though and will run up and actually stand on their back legs for it – I’m not sure who has trained who there! And a third won’t run up for it but is fine with being picked up daily for attention because she is an angora and I like to check her coat daily and groom her and all that.

I start by spending lots of time with the rabbit just sitting near them and feeding them treats (coriander has been a great bribe for most rabbits I have worked with). Once the rabbit is not showing signs of aggression or nerves I will offer to groom their nose or cheek, depending on what the rabbit likes. Nose is fairly standard but I have had some prefer cheeks. I just progress from there depending on the rabbit. At the shelter I am at they do have to be picked up daily and put in a carry cage or play pen while their cage is cleaned. So I make sure I pick them up and hold them in a secure, safe position. They usually learn to accept this fairly quickly, but most don’t love it and would be happy with only being picked up as needed.

5) There is no magic method to prevent territorial behaviour. Obviously being desexed helps, but apart from that it’s just a patience game during bonding. Clean up the excess poops/urine regularly to prevent it from becoming a long term litter habit, but don’t expect it to completely go away until they are ready. Some will just take longer than others and I have found with groups it can take longer than pairs because they need to adjust to more rabbits. Every rabbit is different, you just need to give them time.

[a llama]

Would chinning be in the group of behaviors that I can count as an “exception” in terms of when I can move on to actual bonding? Because all three of them will just chin everything for minutes after I switch their cages. That being said, if chinning isn’t counted as a problematic behavior, I can say that Annabelle and Oreo are near ready to start meeting each other face-to-face. Another thing, I have found that Oreo is now pushing his play pen towards Annabelle’s play pen so that they can get a chance to interact through the bars. I am aware that this can cause aggression, so I have already taken precaution and blocked any sort of way to continue this behavior. However, when they touched noses through the bars, they were both just very curious about each other and there was no sign of any aggression. After a few seconds of sniffing, Oreo suddenly decided that he needed to groom Annabelle’s eyes for the next 15 seconds or so. What I found strange about this is the fact that the only place that Oreo would groom was Annabelle’s eyes and nowhere else, does anyone know why?

[a llama]

Oreo will do the same to Ben as well with the grooming on his eyes. I have heard that rabbits will groom each other on the eyes if they think there is something wrong in that area, but as far as I know, neither Annabelle or Ben have any sort of problems with their eyes.

[Sirius&Luna]

Chinning is fine, and not a sign that they aren’t ready for bonding. My bonded trio still chin things.

Someone else asked about eye grooming today – eye grooming is a totally normal part of rabbit grooming, and not something to be concerned about. It’s often just a place that they start off grooming, and they’ll move to other spots later.

[a llama]

Alright, so I decided to do the first introduction with Oreo and Annabelle earlier today. It wasn’t amazing, but it didn’t go horrible either. I made sure they were both tired and hungry before I started the session and put some hay in the middle of the bonding area. Basically, they pretty much ignored each other for the entire time of 10 minutes or so. And as usual, Annabelle was immediately curious about everything and payed no attention to Oreo in any way. Oreo didn’t have much of a reaction to Annabelle either, but he did sniff her a few times. They both showed signs of relaxation, including eating the hay, grooming themselves, digging at grass, turning their backs to each other, etc. However, about 30 seconds into the bonding session, Oreo suddenly ran up to Annabelle with his tail raised and sprayed her on the side, which oddly didn’t seem to bother her at all. I first thought that since it was a first session and spraying was much more likely to come about, that it was fine. But then, a few moments later, Oreo did the same thing, and then again, until he had sprayed so many times that I was losing count. I’m not sure why he is still spraying at this point, because it has easily been more than 10 weeks since I’ve neutered him. Although like I said, other than the spraying, they were just acting like the other wasn’t even there. Anyone have any thoughts on that? I would really like to know what is causing Oreo to spray and what I should do about it.

[a llama]

Oh, I forgot to ask, is it better to introduce 2 at a time, or just all 3 right away?

[Sirius&Luna]

Introducing two or three is up to you really. I introduced my boys first, and once it was clear that there would be no problems between them, I added the bunny that I knew would be a problem. That way, I knew if a fight broke out that I needed to focus on getting Luna out. Some people do just go into all three. It’s really up to you to decide, based on the personality of your rabbits, and your confidence in managing three at once.

Spraying can be a dominance behaviour. It’s good that it didn’t annoy Annabelle, but it can be pretty gross. It could also be a sign that the bonding area wasn’t neutral enough.

I would also be wary about waiting until they’re tired and hungry. I noticed that my bunnies got more aggressive in bonding sessions as they got hungry, so it could be that full up bunnies are happier bunnies that are easier to bond. If you think about humans, you wouldn’t want to meet new people when you were both tired and hungry!

[a llama]

Well, I just did an introduction between Annabelle and Ben. This time, things didn’t go nearly as well as they did with Oreo and Annabelle. After I put them in the outside bonding area, they were both just eating and digging at the grass and overall ignoring each other. This lasted for about 10 seconds, before Annabelle wandered to close to Ben and he decided to attack. I broke up the fight as quickly as possible, but Annabelle seemed to be quite shocked at how aggressive Ben was towards her and was on-edge for the rest of the session (Annabelle was not the aggressive one, so far it seems as though Ben is the “problematic” bunny of the three.) Luckily, it was just fur-pulling and neither of them were wounded. This fur-pulling behavior continued for the rest of the session until they eventually tired themselves out and went to opposite sides of the bonding area while ignoring each other. I decided that this was probably the most positive point they could reach in the introduction and just ended the session after a few minutes of them resting and ignoring each other. Although, I do feel bad that Annabelle has to deal with this sort of aggression just because of how sweet and playful her personality is. Anyway, I’m not sure how I should react to this. I was planning on putting all three of them together to see if there would be any changes with the dynamics of their interactions, but now I am a bit hesitant as Ben has shown that he is really aggressive at this point. Should I continue sessions with Annabelle and Ben to see how things go over time? Or should I let Ben settle himself down and just do Annabelle and Oreo for now? Or should I try all three? How can I work with Ben’s aggression? Sorry for all the questions, but I just want to feel that I am doing things in the most efficient way, as I did have some major mistakes with bonding Oreo and Ben while I was relatively new to being a rabbit parent.

[Sirius&Luna]

Just to clarify, ignoring is neutral behaviour, so don’t be disheartened by ignoring.

If Ben is immediately aggressive, then you could try the ‘smooshing’ technique. This is where you just sit them next to each other at the start of the session, smooshed together, and pet them together. They both relax because they’re being pet, and they learn that the other bunny isn’t a threat to them.

Personally, I never let my bunnies fight or fur pull at all during bonding, but some people do think you need to leave them to it a little more. However, during these early sessions, they definitely should not be allowed to fur pull or fight. Sit in the pen with them if you need to, keep your hand between them if you need to. You want to build up trust, and if you allow them to fight early on, then they learn that fighting is what they do together.

If Ben continues to be aggressive, even with these techniques, then do a bit more prebonding.

You should also keep pre-bonding after you’ve started sessions You might want to focus on putting Annabelle’s stuff in with Ben, so he gets used to her smell more.

[a llama]

No worries, I am aware that ignoring is a good behavior, much better than fighting at least. And I try not to let them do fur pulling either, but sometimes they manage to dodge the dustpan and get each other anyway. However, I noticed that Ben is now getting aggressive at any sort of movement from either Oreo or Annabelle, even through their cages. I am constantly catching him in a defensive position towards one of the two (raised tail, flat ears and elongated body,) and his last encounter with Annabelle has only increased that behavior. The problem is, sometimes when Annabelle wants to play, she will protest at being penned up and start rattling the cage pretty strongly, and that ends up moving her cage closer to Ben’s cage and allowing them to nip each other through the bars. Usually just letting her play for a couple of hours will fix the problem, but there is nothing I can do about it while I am away or sleeping. I have thought of putting some sort of solid barrier on the sides of Ben’s cage that he can see the other two, but wouldn’t that ruin the effects of pre-bonding?

Now, about the next bonding session, you suggested that I should try to do forced snuggling. The problem with that is that neither of them like to stay still for pets for very long, especially when they are exploring a new area. But, it’s definitely worth a try and I’ll update the post when I do the session.

[a llama]

I have also seen that if I spray Ben’s face when he tries to lunge or charge at Annabelle through the cage bars, he gets scared and stops the aggressive behavior for a while. I’m wondering I should actually be doing this or not and if it will help with his aggression.

[DanaNM]

I wouldn’t spray them if they are doing things through the cage bars. Only to break up a fight.

Anchor the cage, or put something in between to they can’t move them closer together.

How long have you been pre-bonding? Are you fully swapping them every day? You shouldn’t be doing bonding sessions if you are seeing any aggression during pre-bonding. You should wait until they are fine with the other bunny in pre-bonding, then start sessions.

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

[a llama]

Thanks for the reply, I’ll make sure to stop the spraying. To answer your questions, I have been pre-bonding for around 3-4 weeks and during that time I have been switching cages, toys, litter boxes, etc. And I am aware that aggression should be completely gone before I start bonding them, the bonding sessions were based on a misunderstandment, my bad. Also, how long does it usually take for aggression to go away? Because Ben has not shown any change ever since I started pre bonding.

[DanaNM]

Hmmm that’s tough. Reading back through the history, it almost sounds like Ben has gotten worse? Is he just rattling the bars, or actually trying to nip and charge at Anabelle?

I’m wondering if he’s gotten aggressive because you were doing bonding sessions at the same time as pre-bonding? And it sounds like they might have been able to nip through the bars, which can build negative feelings towards each other.

This statement “I noticed that Ben is now getting aggressive at any sort of movement from either Oreo or Annabelle, even through their cages….I am constantly catching him in a defensive position towards one of the two (raised tail, flat ears and elongated body,) and his last encounter with Annabelle has only increased that behavior. ” makes me think he is feeling very threatened by her, and needs more a more gradual process.

I think what I would do in your case, would be to move them farther apart, so Ben doesn’t feel quite so threatened, but keep up with cage swaps. Let him get used to her scent without her immediate presence right there in his face. Try that for 2 weeks or so and see if he starts calming down. You might even consider a full pause with not swaps, no contact (maybe for a week or 2) to let him calm down.

It sounds to me like he is very fearful, and is acting defensively. So your job is to help him feel safe and calm, so that he can accept another bunny. Bonding is ultimately good for bunnies, but we are asking a lot of them, in an unnatural situation, so it’s important to do what works for each bunny.

Also, do you still have Ben and Oreo together? If he is that on edge, it would be wise to separate them.

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

[a llama]

First of all, I think you are not properly informed, as Oreo and Ben were never actually bonded and together. At one point in their relationship, they both agreed on a sort of “co-existing” neutrality and stopped being aggressive towards each other in a neutral space. However, that all changed when I made the huge mistake of letting them in each other’s territories, which immediately triggered Ben and caused him to lunge at Oreo and bite him on the back. They were never the same after that encounter, but they do seem to be calming down towards each other with the pre-bonding and the presence of Annabelle.

That being said, Ben rattles his cage mostly when he hasn’t gotten his play time for the day. And he’s starting to calm down in terms of being aggressive through the bars when no one is playing. The real problem comes when one of the other two are free-roaming and they walk too close to the edge of his cage, which is when he REALLY becomes aggressive and does things like charging at them at first sight, trying to lunge through the bars, and going into that aggressive body language I mentioned before. Although I am pretty sure he is at least a little better than before, as he is starting to become less aggressive when the other two are in their cages. Also, I feel like I should mention that his aggression completely disappears when it is his turn to free-roam and he sort of just minds his own business and plays about as if there were no other rabbits around.

[Sirius&Luna]

When I was prebonding, Luna would always get very angry when she could see either of the other two out, and she was locked up. It wasn’t neccesarily aggression towards them, so much as jealousy that they were out and she wasn’t.

I think its good that he’s starting to calm down though, so I would continue prebonding.

[a llama]

Should I be bonding Oreo and Annabelle while leaving Ben to calm down? Or should I wait for all three to be ready? Oreo doesn’t show any aggression during pre bonding and neither does Annabelle.

[Deleted User]

Didn’t Ben show aggression during prebonding with just Oreo too? I’m wondering if you might be better off with a pair and a single.

[a llama]

Well, he did show aggression, but it was probably because I introduced them on the day after the adoption in a non-neutral territory without doing pre bonding. On top of that, I did bonding sessions for about a week after that introduction without having Oreo neutered beforehand. However, as I mentioned before, Ben and Oreo were still able to reach that point in their relationship where neither of them showed aggression to each other, which means that I shouldn’t give up hope on trying to fit Ben in a bonded trio. And, you didnt seem to answer my question about whether or not I should wait for Ben to start bonding sessions with the other two.

[Deleted User]

I didn’t realize it had been right after, I thought it was after prebonding for a few months. I’m not sure about your question because I don’t have a trio, but if I remember from S&L’s thread, she ended up doing a few sessions with just her boys then added in Luna after a bit. So hopefully she’ll pop back in with good advice.

[DanaNM]

Ah sorry, must have misread your original post.

It’s really your call about whether to start with the pair and add the third, but quite a few experienced people (including the president of the House Rabbit Society in the US) say to only work with all three together if you want a trio. Her perspective is that the hierarchy gets figured out as a group, so when you add a third, they would need to reestablish things anyway.

S&L worked with the easiest pairing first, and then added Luna, and it worked out pretty well for her though. So, it might be worth trying. Then if the trio doesn’t work out at least you have the other two bonded?

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

[a llama]

I’ll be updating everyone with everything that’s been going on after I have the time to write such a big post, but until then, I have a quick question. Basically, I promised a friend that I could temporarily take care of their rabbit over summer break, doing so while I found out just afterwards that their rabbit was unfixed. Initially, I didn’t give much though to it, but then I remembered reading something about how fixed rabbits can “feed” off of the hormones of nearby unfixed rabbits and return to their previous hormonal behaviors. My question is, can I house my friend’s unfixed rabbit next to my other three without causing them having an outburst of hormones? If this isn’t possible, I can’t think of any other room that my family will let me house the rabbit in, which would force me to get a hutch and house it outside (which I really don’t want to do because of insanely high summer temperatures over here and because I want it to be interacting with me and the family).

[Harley&Thumper]

You might be able to get away with covering the unfixed bunnies cage with a blanket. Normally pairs / trios will fight among themselves if they can see a rabbit they aren’t friends with.

[DanaNM]

I would not house them next to your trio. It won’t necessarily cause an outburst of hormones, but could upset their bond. Assuming the trio is bonded??

It is really about smell, so even if they can’t see the other bunny, the smells could set them off. I have an unfixed male in my bathroom overnight, and my spayed girl started chasing everyone and everything (her bonded mate, the cat, etc), and thumping up a storm. We had to get the boy outta there!

If it were me, I would let your friend know that they need to find another solution, because I wouldn’t want to risk breaking up my bonded bunnies!

Now, if I’ve misread and the trio isn’t bonded, then I don’t really see a problem with it! You might just have some marking to clean up, but that would prob happen with any new bunny, fixed or not.

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

[a llama]

You have indeed misread the post so far, as none of them are bonded yet and pretty much the only progress I’ve had so far is that I am finally done with pre-bonding. I haven’t started any real bonding sessions yet, as I do want to write that post I was talking about before first so that I can get some reassurement in terms of what I should be doing next. Anyway, it is good to hear that housing them next to each other should not be an issue. Also, do you know if I can still continue with bonding after the three get used to the new scent?

[DanaNM]

Gotcha!

Hmm, having the unfixed bun there might make them a bit confused, so I would just see how they react. You be surprised at how strongly bunnies can react to an unfixed bunny! (You will also prob be surprised at how stinky unfixed bunnies are…!). :p

If they seem extra territorial with the new bun around, I would wait to start bonding until they calm down (or the new bun is gone).

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

[a llama]

Here I am finally writing that post I’ve been talking about (as you can see its a big one, so I am apologizing in advance), and now I can get a chance to address some new questions and concerns with my original three and my friend’s bunny. First off, the new bunny is a 5-year-old unspayed female named Bunita. She is very outgoing, but she doesn’t have much energy when it comes to free roaming time. I can obviously tell she is hormonal, as she has tried to hump my knees multiple times and she loves to chin everything she sees, especially when she smells my other bunnies. Luckily though, her presence in the room doesn’t seem to affect my other three much at all. Here are my questions about her:

~When she is chinning my hand because she smells my other bunnies’ scents on it, she also likes to lick my fingers a few times before going away. I would have thought that she was actually grooming me, but she only licks me when she knows I have been touching other bunnies. Is this a thing she does because it helps her rub her scent on my hand, or is it just grooming like I thought?

~Sometimes when I am petting her cheeks, I feel some sort of wetness and I see that her eyes are “watery”. Her eyes are not always like this and she definitely doesn’t seem to have any sort of sickness. Is this something I should be concerned about?

~As was mentioned before, Bunita is not very energetic when I let her out to play. I am not quite sure if this is because of age or because she is not interested in playing with all those hormones in her system. Since the first time I’ve let her free roam, I have not seen her express any major sign of happiness like a binky, flop or zoomy at all, I was just interested in knowing why not.

Now for an update on how pre-bonding has been going so far. After about a month and a half of switching blankets, litter boxes and toys and occasionally switching cages between the three, I don’t think that their reactions to each others’ territories are changing much anymore. Other than chinning and territorial pooping, Annabelle has not payed much attention to prebonding at all, which is good. Ben is pretty much the same, except he always likes to dig at his blanket after he smells any foreign territory on it, which I am not sure if this is good or not . Oreo, however, after I switch all their blankets, likes to take a few minutes smelling the new territory until after he is done when he sometimes likes to pee on it as well. Although Oreo’s peeing behavior had greatly diminished during all the prebonding, he hasn’t completely stopped.

With that being said, I decided to start legitimate bonding sessions without Ben for a while to see how Oreo’s and Annabelle’s initial reactions would be to each other. During the first session, I decided to use the bathtub with a small towel to help calm Annabelle down from her trip in the carrier because she doesn’t like being picked up (I also had to give her some treats because she was still throwing a fit with her thumping and grunting because she doesn’t like the bath tub.) It took a few minutes to help calm Annabelle, but after this was done, I went to go put Oreo in the bathtub with Annabelle. There was no immediate aggression, which was good because it gave me a chance to start all the forced snuggling I had planned for the introduction. Other than the few times that they got up to move around for a little, they were snuggling for the entire 10-minute session while I was petting them together.

During the second session, I used the same bathtub with the same unwashed towel. Again, I first brought Annabelle in, calmed her down, and put Oreo in right after. I started off with a couple minutes of forced snuggling, but then I let them interact a bit. This is when Annabelle started to face-mount Oreo. Face mounting is generally considered a bad thing, so I pushed her off almost as soon as I saw what was happening. Oreo didn’t like that she had just mounted him, so he decided to mount her back, which caused them to continually try to mount each other, thus creating a “circling” motion which I let last for a few seconds before I completely separated them with the dust pan (it was quite obvious there was some aggression building up). They both seemed tired afterwards, so I put them together and did a few more minutes of forced snuggling. I stopped petting them once again, but this time Oreo decided to groom Annabelle for a few seconds. As the session had lasted for about 15 minutes at this point, I thought this was a good, positive moment to stop things on.

During the third session, I brought both Annabelle and Oreo to the bathtub and did normal procedures in the beginning as preparation, this time without the towel because I thought this would discourage any further aggression as I saw during the previous session. I started with forced snuggling, and I let them interact a bit sooner than I did before. Annabelle did mount Oreo, but he did not react negatively this time. I petted Oreo for a bit afterwards to calm him down and allowed them to interact once more. While they were moving about in the bathtub, Oreo approached Annabelle and bowed his head in hopes of getting groomed. To my surprise, Annabelle did groom Oreo, but very briefly and pretty roughly on his forehead (the “grooming” almost looked like a soft biting, but Oreo didn’t flinch so I just considered it to be grooming.) Oreo seemed pretty happy about this, so he just sat still in contentment for a while. Annabelle also started to groom herself while Oreo was sitting still, which I have read is a good sign because it implies that she is comfortable with Oreo. For the rest of the session, Oreo briefly groomed Annabelle several times while asking her to groom him back every time, but ending up getting nipped in the nose for every time he did so (Oreo raised his tail a few times when she was nipping him, but he didn’t physically react back with aggression so I just let that go). I ended the session after about 20 minutes when Oreo groomed Annabelle again.

The fourth and last session I have done up until now went pretty similarly to how the third session went, except that Annabelle had no interest in grooming Oreo at all this time. After the initial forced snuggling, Oreo went straight to grooming Annabelle and hoping for more grooming in return. To express that she didn’t want to groom him, she nipped Oreo every time he shoved his head under her to ask for grooming. At one point in the session, instead of simply nipping Oreo like she usually did when he put his head under her head, she made a grunting noise and “lunged” at Oreo and used her front feet to scratch him on his forehead. Annabelle did not injure Oreo with her lunging behavior, but this obviously meant that she was getting annoyed with him. Because of this, I decided to end the session with a few more minutes of forced snuggling.

This is all that has happened for now, although I may have forgotten to say a few things. I am writing this as I am exhausted from a day of chores, so I apologize for any confusing or redundant sentences I may have written. Thank you for your time in reading such a lengthy post, all your help so far has been greatly appreciated.

[a llama]

Oh, I forgot to mention, around halfway during the fourth session, I got Ben to see how things would go after such a long separation he had away from Oreo. Unfortunately, he was almost immediately aggressive towards both Annabelle and Oreo. He started demanding grooms by constantly nipping them on their noses, which caused some issues with Annabelle, as she also seems to be pretty dominant. Although I barely managed to avoid some bad fights Ben could have caused (I had to be constantly petting him), I was wondering to what extent I should allow aggression to happen, as I do understand rabbits are aggressive towards each other to establish dominance. I sort of panicked when I saw Ben being so aggressive, so I just took him back to his pen after he was briefly calmed down while I was petting him. Another question, should have I removed the towel in the bathtub? If so, when should I put the towel back?

[a llama]

Forgive me if I sound impatient, but its been a few days without any replies. I’ll revive the thread just in case that will help with attracting attention.

[DanaNM]

Hi, sorry I didn’t realize the long post had questions in it, I skimmed it and it seemed like more of a journal.

Regarding your 5 year old unspayed girl, the watery eyes could mean a dental issue, and low energy could just be her personality, or something could be going on with her. It might be good to get a check up for her just to be sure, especially since she’s a new bun, and reproductive cancers can start becoming very common in unspayed girls that age. (not to be alarming, but it would be worth a vet exam to rule things out). If caught early the vet could spay her and remove it.

Regarding the bonding: all sounds pretty typical, but I personally have had more luck with larger spaces. It allows them to get space from each other when they need it, and prevents you from having to intervene to prevent every nip from escalating. Some nipping is OK, but hard biting is not. In these early sessions, I would be doing just as you are: lots of petting and smooshing to build a calm association, especially if I only had a small space to work with. They will likely need to get a bit testy with each other, but early on I think it’s good to keep them mostly calm. That way when they do nip and chase to establish dominance, it doesn’t turn into a full on scuffle.

If there was any specific question I missed please repeat it

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

[a llama]

Thanks for the response, and I don’t think there is really anything that you missed, other than my question about why Annabelle was using her front feet instead of biting when she was lunging at Oreo. Also, the very first bonding session I did was with Oreo and Annabelle in a play pen outside in the grass. The reason I started to use the bathtub instead was because Oreo was spraying at Annabelle almost non-stop during that first outside session, and I figured that the added stress of the bathtub would discourage that behavior. However, now that I think about it, he may have been spraying because of the grass (for some reason he likes to spray at soft materials like the carpet). I don’t know if that previous theory is really true, but do you think it would be worth a try to do another outside session on the concrete instead of on the grass?

[DanaNM]

They will use their front feet and “pounce” sometimes when lunging, it’s a dominance display, and I think it a more gentle one than lunging with teeth. Bertha would use her front paws to “bop” Bun Jovi on the head when he would run by her during their bonding sessions when he would get too rambunctious.

The spraying could have been the grass, it also could have just been because it was the first session, hard to know for sure.

The concrete could be good, and I don’t think it would hurt to try.

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

[a llama]

I just did two sessions with Oreo and Ben, they both went pretty badly. In the first session, I used the bathtub again and there was immediate aggression (Ben was the aggressor). Neither of them cared when I started to pet them and they just wanted each others’ blood. about 8 minutes into the session, they both started to sit nose-to-nose for a while. Since they were both tired from all the fighting, I started to pet them while they were resting and ended the session shortly after, as this was probably the most positive moment they were going to reach. A day after, I decided to take your advice and try a session outside on the concrete. I didn’t have any spare pens, so I just borrowed Bunita’s pen for use during the session (she has an extra cage that I put her in while I was borrowing her pen). As expected, Oreo started spray almost immediately, so I just moved the pen out to the grass because it is much more convenient not to clean all the territorial markings. It was about 30 seconds into the session, and at this point and there was no aggression yet, probably because they were both busy chinning Bunita’s pen and digging at the grass. As soon as Ben decided he was done with that, he lunged at Oreo and caused their first fight during the session. Several fights later, they were at the point where they would immediately charge at each other if either of them started moving, so they both just sat still on opposite sides of the pen while I was petting them to keep them as calm as possible. After about 15 minutes in the session, they were both still resting and I just ended the session there. I put them both back in their pens and they started to chase each other through the bars with their tails up for a while. Is this chasing behavior normal or is it something that I should be concerned about? Also, do you think I should be bonding Ben and Oreo first so that they get their differences settled for when I bring Annabelle in the future, or do you think I should just go back to bonding Oreo and Annabelle before I add Ben?

[a llama]

It is a day after their last session, and they are still chasing each other through the bars, but Oreo has now started to spray Ben when they are chasing each other. As I did not know if this chasing behavior would affect a bonding session or not, I decided to risk it and once again do another session outside on the grass. However, this time I used some thick gloves to separate fights instead of my old dustpan, which proved to be much more effective as I was hoping for. When the session started, I put Ben in first and put Oreo on the opposite side of the pen just in case they would immediately try to fight each other, which did happen as expected. As usual, Ben was the one to lunge at Oreo first, but this attempt failed, as Ben got my glove instead. Ben tried to attack a few more times, but eventually gave up and just started to mind his own business digging and eating at the grass (Oreo pretty much hasn’t moved at all, as I have been petting him for most of the time so far). I tried petting Ben to calm him down a little, but he was not paying any attention to that. At one point in the session, Ben started to go towards Oreo’s face, and to my surprise, he did not try to lunge, but instead bowed his head in hopes of getting groomed. Their noses were touching at this point and they were not being aggressive towards each other (they had their tails up, but no physical aggression), so I took advantage of the moment and tried to preserve this positive interaction by calming them both down with some petting. This worked for a while, but as I was taking off my gloves to pick up Oreo and end the session, Ben attacked almost immediately after I stopped petting them which caused a pretty bad fight. There was tons of fur pulled, and Oreo made a bite wound right under Ben’s right eye (he wasn’t bleeding out, but I could obviously see a red line). I barely managed to prevent all the other attack attempts by both Oreo and Ben afterwards the fight, and they eventually just went back to sitting on opposite sides of the pen, staring at each other while I was petting them. After all this, Ben finally started to groom himself which gave me a good chance to end the session on a slightly positive mood. Another thing to note is that I heard Oreo tooth grinding for most of the session, which I know is a sign of discomfort, but I do not know what that means in terms of bonding.

So far, it seems that for some reason, Ben is very aggressive towards Oreo and he is only getting worse with my attempts at bonding them. I don’t know if this is because Ben is still holding a grudge against Oreo from their previous interactions a few months ago, or if it is simply his nature to be anti-social. If possible, I would love to know if I am doing anything wrong or if there is another method I can try to get Ben to quit with all the aggression. Until I see that Ben is going to calm down, I think I’ll just keep trying to make Oreo and Annabelle a pair instead of a trio with Ben.

[a llama]

I apologize if any of you thought that these previous posts were just journals, as I have actually asked a few questions within them. If it is more convenient, just let me know and I can list all my questions at the end of each post so that you don’t have to spend the time reading everything. Apologies again if there were any unexpected confusions.

[DanaNM]

Oh dear, just catching up on this (was out of town over the weekend). I actually suggest you change for title to say something like “Help needed with trio bonding”, so more people might notice it and give advice (I think I might be one of the few tracking this thread).

Anyway, time to change your strategies. I’m a little short on time but I wanted to check in on this, I’ll try to hit the main points.

It sounds like they are getting into a bad habit of aggression towards each other. If either was seriously injured, you should give them a break from bonding and pre-bonding to allow them to cool off. Then go back to pre-bonding for a few weeks and see if they are still trying to chase through the bars. that is definitely an aggressive display, so ideally you would want to see that stop before continuing. Biting near the face means they want to hurt the other rabbit, rather than just dominance displays.

I would not use the bath tub at all anymore. I would go 1 of two options (or both) once you start again:

stressful: car rides can really work wonders when bunnies want to fight immediately. Have a helper, have the car running already, and then pop the buns in a bin and take them for a drive. You sit in the back with them and prevent any biting.

For larger sessions: very large, new, with lots of obstacles: at least 2 x-pens linked up. Add at least 2 or 3 hiding boxes, each with at least 2 large exits so no one gets cornered. You can put hay and treats everywhere. The idea is to allow them to escape from each other if they need to, and give them distractions so they can interact more calmly.

Regarding two vs. 3 at a time: Many experts say that the dynamics will change when you add a third, so you should work with all three at the same time. That said, if you aren’t sure you can handle that, you can work with each pairing individually for a while, then try all three. I wouldn’t recommend completely bonding two before adding the third though, as they will need to resort things out.

If you do work with all three, give them even more space (like 3 x-pens worth), and have a helper with you.

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

[DanaNM]

I also just remembered that you might have your friend’s unfixed bunnies at your house???

It seems like there has been a dramatic increase in aggression recently, and I wonder if that could be part of it? New bunny smells can be very confusing.

In terms of Ben’s aggression, it it important to remember that often they are communicating in ways we don’t recognize. For example, it can seem like Ben is just being mean to Oreo, but Ben requested grooms from Oreo, which he did not give, which is a sign of non-submission. Oreo has been spraying, so it’s going both ways.

Bonding two dominant buns is tough, but it can be done with patience and persistence. It does sound like things between Anabelle and Oreo were going more smoothly, so you might choose to bond them, and then find a different bun to bond with Ben (assuming you have space for 2 pairs). Ben might just do better with another bun, it doesn’t mean he is anti-social just because he doesn’t get along with Oreo.

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

[Sirius&Luna]

I think people find it hard to read the long blocks of text, so try to keep to the key points and bullet point questions at the end.

I’ve skimmed… and my thoughts are below.

Is it one bunny always starting the aggression?

One of my trio, Luna, is very aggressive. For my first week of sessions (which were super short, 5 minute type sessions), I didn’t stop petting her head, and never took my hand off her. I let my two boys hop around her doing their own thing, so they got used to her, and she realised they weren’t a danger to her (most rabbits are aggressive out of fear, they’re not just mean). After that, I didn’t pet her all the time, I stepped back a bit, but would step back in with my hand between them if I was worried she was going to get aggressive. By slowly getting them used to being in the same space together, I could be pretty confident that it wasn’t going to descend into fighting the minute I stepped back a little. Don’t be afraid of really intervening at the beginning.

Also, I agree that Dana raises a very important point about the other rabbit potentially adding to the problems.

I would take a break for a week or so (providing there were no serious injuries, in which case it needs to be longer), or until the other rabbit has left. Just to give you all a bit of a break and break the bunnies immediate habit of fighting.

[a llama]

Thank you for the suggestions about changing the formatting of the thread, but how would I change it’s name?

And about the unspayed rabbit, during most of the sessions I did with Oreo and Ben, I used her uncleaned play pen as a bonding area to put them outside on the grass. I figured that since that cage was neither of their territories, that it would be considered a “neutral” space. But now that you are suggesting that new bunny smells can cause aggression, do you think it would be worth it to clean the cage before every session? (I used Bunita’s cage because my parents are trying to lower the amount of money they spend with the rabbits, which means they are not not currently willing to get another pen). And none of them really seem to be affected by being housed with Bunita in the same room (just saying in case I didn’t before).

Regarding Oreo’s and Ben’s last few sessions, Ben got a couple bites to the face that barely made red marks (nothing too severe), and their chasing behavior through the cage has not been showing signs of stopping any time soon. Because of this, I decided to block their views from each other’s cages with a layer of cardboard, and just a day after this, I have already been noticing significant decreases in the amount of territorial droppings around their cages now. As Luna suggested, I will be leaving this cardboard blocking between their cages for around a week in hopes of discouraging instant aggression during the next bonding session.

Another thing, I recently saw a video of somebody bonding a trio with two of the bunnies being pretty aggressive towards each other like Oreo and Ben (if you want to see it, here is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7QOKF5lDXU ) But in the video, she did one huge session until they were all bonded instead of what I have been doing with the short 5-20 minute sessions every day. I’m not sure if Oreo and Ben would be able to handle this kind of exposure to each other (maybe after the 1 week break), but do you think that this would be a good option for Oreo and Annabelle?

As a final note, Ben usually doesn’t respond to when I start petting him during a bonding session and either tries to find a way to bite Oreo or just keeps digging at the grass. You mentioned that during your first week of bonding your trio with Luna, that you never had your hands off of her. With the fact in mind that Ben doesn’t sit still when I start petting him, should I still be keeping my hands near him at all times? Also, in that video I mentioned earlier, she put the two aggressive rabbits together, regardless of how one of them was obviously trying to attack the other. While she was doing this, she was also preventing any sort of biting from happening. Should I be doing this with Ben and keeping them from attacking each other like she did?

Anyway, I tried to keep main points and all the story attached to them in separate paragraphs this time. Let me know if this is better than how I was organizing previously.

[Sirius&Luna]

If you go back to your first post in the thread and click edit, you can edit the name of the thread

I think using Bunita’s uncleaned cage could definitely be contributing to problems. I would clean it every time, or avoid it all together. Could you use a small room like the bathroom instead?

Have you been prebonding and swapping them between cages still? It’s important to carry on the prebonding while actual bonding, even though it sounds like it should only be done before bonding!

Some people do have success with one long bonding session – you need to be prepared to monitor them for at least 48 hours, and I believe one member, SarahtheGemini marathon bonded her pair and spent two weeks watching them. They were an easy pair too, but it still took a while to establish dominance.

You should absolutely be stopping any biting and lunging between any of them, not just the aggressive one. After the first week of keeping my hands on Luna (which in her case, does keep her calm and in one place – I would just pet her head and she would snuggle down and stay still), I then spent the next few sessions letting her move around, but keeping my hand between her face and the other buns, so she never had an opportunity to lunge at them. The video sounds similar to what I did – let them be in the same space, but ensure that they can’t ever actually hurt each other.

Thanks for the changed formatting, much easier to follow

[DanaNM]

Yes marathoning from the beginning can work (and is the strategy used by many rabbit rescues), but you will need to make sure:

-You have at least several days to supervise them 24/7. They should be able to be together for minimum 24 hrs with all positive interaction and no negatives before being unsupervised, and each time you move them to a new location they will need supervision again. I’ve always waited 48 hrs to be safe.

-If you notice that they are aggressive at the beginning of a session and then calm down, then this could work for you. But, if they tend to go in cycles of aggression, or get “fed up” with each other towards the end, I personally would not opt for a marathon yet.

– The space should be VERY neutral. Ideally a new place where no one has fought with each other. They can build associations with the places they are in, so changing to a new location can really help.

– You should feel confident enough reading their body language to know when to intervene.

– Make sure all bunnies are not overly stressed, in that they are still eating, pooping, grooming, and resting.

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

[Apollothebunny]

Hi this is Apollothebunny and I think you are so lucky. Do you rescue your bunnies or no. Also do you know how to upload a photo onto a album? Have a great day

[a llama]

Hi Apollothebunny, yes, all my bunnies are rescued. And why do you think I am lucky? If you are talking about how I am lucky to have such amazing bunnies, then I totally agree with you.

 (The following descriptions of the bonding sessions will not contain any questions, they are just noting progress. Feel free to skip over them to the questions at the end if wanted.)

Also, I did two outside bonding sessions with Oreo and Annabelle. This time, since I did not have anything else to use, I cleaned Bunita’s play pen in hot water while rubbing soap all over it for a few minutes before both of the sessions. With the cleaned pen, hopefully now it would help discourage any potential aggression between them. Like usual, Annabelle was the first one to be transported to the bonding area, but this time I used Oreo’s litterbox to do so, as she has quickly learned that the carrier I was using before meant a vet visit or a bonding session. After Oreo was in the pen with Annabelle, he started exploring the new bonding area and decided to spray the pen’s bars a few moments later, even though I removed Bunita’s scent from it (he was also doing this weird “wagging” motion with his tail while he was chinning the bars). As I was sitting in the center of the bonding area, Oreo continued to walk around me with his tail up, prepared to spray anything he wanted to, until he saw Annabelle sitting there when he ran around and Sprayed her on the side, which she gave no attention to. I was keeping my hands near them and petting them both as much as possible during the entire session so far, if that was not clear before. They spent a little more time away from each other exploring the area, until when Oreo approached Annabelle once again with his tail up, but this time Annabelle shoved her head under Oreo in a submissive position asking to be groomed. Oreo backed up a little and they started a short “head war” with their heads and noses squished together. Once Oreo realized that Annabelle was not going to groom him, he just got up and ran in the opposite direction. This sort of “head war” interaction between them happened a couple times afterwards the first one, until when finally instead of running away, Oreo lowered his tail and groomed Annabelle for a few seconds before he went into a loaf position and snuggled with Annabelle while I was petting them both to further encourage the snuggling behavior. They stayed this way for a minute or two, until Oreo got up and walked a bit and started to groom himself. I ended the session there after about 15 minutes.

The second session was very similar to the first one, meaning that Oreo was going around with his tail up and chinning the bars most of the time. However, there were a few differences, including that they still had a couple head wars, but Oreo went on to grooming Annabelle alot sooner than last time and had his tail up much less. Both Annabelle and Oreo groomed themselves a couple times and Oreo groomed Annabelle more than once this time. At this point in the session, it had already lasted for about 35 minutes and Oreo had just started to groom Annabelle again. Oreo went into the loaf position and started to snuggle with Annabelle while I was petting them like they did in the first session. Annabelle kicked her feet back and lied down while they snuggled for a couple minutes more than they did last time, and for some reason they were both tooth purring at an almost non-stop rate, which is strange because they usually tooth purr in quick bursts in normal cases.

(Questions here)

With all that has happened so far, do you think I should be changing anything in the next session? When do you think they will be ready for semi-neutral? I really want to try a marathoning session, but that can only happen when they are ready for a semi-neutral session inside the house. Also, what would be considered a semi-neutral space? I have a pretty empty area upstairs where I usually let Oreo and Annabelle play in separate times, and I thought that would pass as semi-neutral, but I just wanted to make sure. Another thing, sometimes on certain days, doing a bonding session is not possible due to either my schedule or bad weather. Is there any problem with skipping a day or two in between sessions?

Here is a picture of Oreo and Annabelle snuggling during their second session in the bathtub. I’m including this because I don’t think I have uploaded any pictures of Annabelle yet.

[Sirius&Luna]

Posted By a llama on 6/25/2018 11:22 PM

They spent a little more time away from each other exploring the area, until when Oreo approached Annabelle once again with his tail up, but this time Annabelle shoved her head under Oreo in a submissive position asking to be groomed. 

This is not a gesture of submission, it’s a gesture of dominance, and demanding being groomed.

The head to head wars are a dominance battle, where neither wants to give in and groom the other. But, that’s not a problem, lots of pairs start of like that. I would pet them both on the head while they’re like that, which may trick them into thinking the other is grooming them. 

It’s good that Oreo just moved away when he realised he wasn’t going to get groomed rather than attack. 

It sounds like they get much better at the ends of sessions, so I definitely think it’s worthwhile extending the time, so that they can interact after Oreo has got all his annoying spraying out the way. 

I’m a bit confused, have you totally given up on the trio now?

Semi neutral is space they’ve both been in, but neither lives in, so your upstairs area sounds perfect.

It’s good if you can be as consistent as possible with daily bonding, but of course at some points you will have to skip days for whatever reason. But you will make quicker progress if you can keep up with a daily routine. 

Is there no neutral space in the house that you can marathon in?

[DanaNM]

It sounds like they are progressing and they are sorting things out, but you’ll want to at least work up to sessions that are several hours long in neutral before trying anything in semi neutral.

Even if you can’t marathon in neutral, they should be able to spend many hours together in neutral it no intervention on your part, and no aggressive behaviors, before you move to less neutral space.

Believe me, I had the same issue with not having a good neutral space to marathon, so I tried a less neutral space, and it was a disaster. It’s really important not to move to quickly at this step when things seem to be going well (tempting as it is).

Have you tried them in your bathroom? Not the tub, but the whole bathroom space?

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

[a llama]

Sorry if it sounded like I was giving up on Ben, which I’m not, but he is still not ready for another bonding session with Oreo. I removed the cardboard layering between their cages after about a week and a half and they were still chasing each other through the bars during that first day without the cardboard, luckily though they stopped the next day. I started switching their cages again a couple days later and they are now back to chasing each other. I was thinking that doing a short session to let them know that they cant attack each other would be helpful, but I’ve decided that I want to see some progress with Oreo and Annabelle first so that I only have Ben to worry about when I finally include him in a bonding session again.

And I have considered using one of the bathrooms, but they are kinda small to use during a bonding session.

Again, I did another session with Oreo and Annabelle. Here is a list of the main points instead of a lengthy description (feel free to skip):

~I did not allow either of them to shove their heads under the other’s butt, as I think this means they are trying to nip the other.
~They were both comfortable enough to eat the hay I put for them on the floor and groom themselves close to the other.
~During the first 10 or so minutes of the session, they were both exploring and chinning everything while Oreo was also spraying Annabelle with his tail up.
~After all the spraying, the rest of the session became lots and lots of head wars, all of which I was supervising very closely while I was petting them. During these head wars, they both got very calm and content and would usually stay this way for several minutes until I stopped petting them or one of them felt like doing something else. These head wars usually had a few outcomes after one of them got bored or realized that they were not going to get groomed:
1. Oreo would groom Annabelle for a few seconds then either go away to groom himself or go into a calm loaf position to further continue snuggling with Annabelle.
2. Oreo would simply get up and go somewhere else without grooming Annabelle.
3. Annabelle would lift her head up and give Oreo an opportunity to shove his head further under Annabelle, every time which she would nip him on the forehead and cause him to jump in surprise. After Oreo had been nipped in the previous head war, his tail would go up when he approached Annabelle the next time, but would quickly go back down after they were both in that calm head-to-head position. Also, there were a couple times when Oreo wanted to get “revenge” on Annabelle for nipping him, so he would run along Annabelle’s side and give her a quick spray. (Oreo was starting to learn what would happen to him when he started to get an advantage in a head war, so I noticed that his tail would go up every time that he decided to shove his head under Annabelle.)

~There was one time when Annabelle decided to leave Oreo during a head war, and Instead of getting up like Annabelle did, Oreo just stayed at the same spot in his loaf position, almost falling asleep. Eventually Annabelle came back around to Oreo’s side and flopped down next to him and started to snuggle. This snuggling lasted for a few minutes until I decided to end the session there after roughly 3 hours of bonding.

I do have a few questions about some things that happened in the session. One is that should I be petting them as much as I am now? The only time I stopped petting them were a few times during their head wars to let them interact, but I’m not sure how much I should be letting them interact without any of my intervention. Also, Annabelle is now getting very cautious about going into the litter box so that I can move her into the bonding area, and it is only getting worse with every time that I lure her in with treats and her urge to claim Oreo’s territory. How can I make her comfortable with getting transported in the litter box? I really do not like that I am scaring her every time that I need to do a bonding session. Another thing, I have seen some people that start gradually introducing small parts of a rabbit’s territory into the bonding area when they see that the bunnies are ready to be exposed to such territories, such as one of their litter boxes. I imagine that Oreo would start spraying like crazy if I were to bring one of their litter boxes into the bonding area, but is this something I should be doing or should I just forget about that and wait until they are good in neutral so I can marathon in semi-neutral?

[DanaNM]

“should I be petting them as much as I am now?”
It sounds like they are communicating without it escalating, so you can start slowly easing off on the petting now. But don’t be afraid to jump in there and pet again if it starts getting tense. I would prob pet when they first come nose to nose, but stop sooner and see what happens. Kind of slowly wean them off of it.

“How can I make her comfortable with getting transported in the litter box? ”
Honestly, bunnies hate bonding, so they will probably be unhappy with whatever way you choose to move them. I just pick mine up and put them in the carrier. They will be mad (get used to some angry thumps when they see you coming….) but they will get over it. Tough love, ya know?

“I have seen some people that start gradually introducing small parts of a rabbit’s territory into the bonding area when they see that the bunnies are ready to be exposed to such territories, such as one of their litter boxes. I imagine that Oreo would start spraying like crazy if I were to bring one of their litter boxes into the bonding area, but is this something I should be doing or should I just forget about that and wait until they are good in neutral so I can marathon in semi-neutral?”

You’re last point is right, not yet! Wait until they are good around each other with no petting or intervention from you before adding anything “semi-neutral”. Even then you should use a very clean, deodorized litter box and see how they do (ideally a new one). I’ve never introduced one of the bunnies boxes, always a brand new (or at least very very clean) one (or 2). Bunnies can get very territorial over litter boxes, so I’ve always waited to introduce them until we were in the marathon cementing phase. In general, don’t progress to semi-neutral stuff until you feel that they are basically bonded in neutral.

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

[a llama]

Before I start talking about bonding progress, I have been forgetting to ask about why Annabelle gets protective every time I put my hands anywhere near her food. Most of the time she gets this way only while she is eating, but she will lunge at my hand while making a loud grunting noise if I try touching her food, even when I am actually GIVING her the food, she will still lunge at my hand and knock the food all over the floor. I have found that the only exception to this behavior is when she gladly eats pellets out of my hand while there is none left in her bowl. Is this some sort of variation to being fully cage territorial?

Anyway, here is Oreo’s and Annabelle’s last session summary:
~ This took place about 3 days after their previous session due to a big rainstorm.
~ In the beginning, I started off by petting them for most of the time they were actually interacting, but I gradually gave them an increasing amount of opportunities to interact without my intervention.
~ Oreo flopped over with his feet behind him around 3/4 the way into the session to have a rest, and Annabelle did the same while I was petting them during a head war.
~ Oreo’s spraying didn’t come immediately this time , however he did spray Annabelle a few times after he lost their first head war about 5 minutes into the session.
~ This session was very similar to the last session, except that during the first hour or so, head wars on average lasted about 15-30 seconds (much shorter than what has been happening in previous sessions). Also, they were both much more “expressive” about their feelings to losing a head war, meaning that the chance of Oreo actually grooming Annabelle was pretty small in comparison to how many times he would spray her instead (again, thankfully Annabelle isn’t bothered by the spraying) And Annabelle was also noticeably trying much harder to assert her dominance this time, as when I decided to stop petting them and give them a chance to have uninterrupted interaction, she would be pretty quick to nip Oreo on the forehead if he was just standing still not grooming her or if he tried shoving his head under her.
~ About a couple hours into the session, they were starting to lose energy and became tired from all the activity so far, which then caused their head wars to go back to lasting minutes at a time. However, Annabelle was not appreciating how Oreo was now loafing every time he became bored of all the head squishing, so she started nipping him every time she noticed his lack of interest in her demanding requests to be groomed. Usually Oreo would just jump back in surprise and continue loafing while I calmed him down with my petting, but in some cases, even though it seemed like Annabelle was obviously trying to nip him, she would actually “violently” nibble on Oreo’s fur for a second or two before she would continue shoving her head under Oreo. As a last resort, after all her attempts at trying to convince Oreo to groom her had failed, she would decide to mount him and start chasing him when he tried to run away, which caused an almost immediate increase in aggression which lead to circling, grunting and eventually lunging. Annabelle mounted Oreo and caused this increase of aggression only two times in the session, but in both cases I decided that a full separation was necessary to calm them enough so that they were able to continue calmly interacting further during the rest of the session. These separations only had to last about a minute or two while I was calming them with some petting, but eventually they got there and were easily able to forgive each other when they were ready.
~ I ended the session after about 4 and a half hours when Oreo had just groomed Annabelle.

At this point I am assuming that they are currently having difficulty determining who will be dominant over the other, which is why they are still being “aggressive” towards each other. If my assumption is correct, do you think there is anything I can do that can help dominance become a little clearer to them? (Annabelle is obviously the dominant one, Oreo is having a hard time accepting that) You mentioned that keeping up with a daily bonding schedule can speed things up in terms of progression, so I will try a little harder to achieve at least something close to this goal. And just as a note, Oreo is now acting pretty casually when it comes to being in Annabelle’s territory, as I think he has finally stopped spraying when I switch their items from their cages like blankies and litter boxes.

[DanaNM]

At this point, I wouldn’t try to speculate over who is dominant, as it can really go either way. I’ve found that by trying to “help” things along, I have actually set things back a bit. When buns are bonded, it can be hard to tell who is dominant. It could be that Oreo is OK with grooming Annabelle, but is still making sure she can be trusted, or maybe he will end up being dominant after all. It sounds like they are sorting things out, although I know it can feel like you aren’t making progress. Usually with bonding things move in big steps, rather than a gradual improvement with each session.

Try your best not to separate them due to scuffling or aggression, as that teaches them that fighting is the way to get that other bunny to go away. Rather, try pressing them into the ground and petting until they are calm. You can also try distracting them with some really yummy treats (cheerios were a favorite when i was bonding).

I think at this point I would start trying to only pet when things get a bit testy, so they have a bit more space to interact with each other. So, if they don’t immediately start scuffling when they start asking for grooms, don’t pet so much, or as immediately. You can also try starting off the session with a car ride, then move them into the bonding space together. I also like to do a “stress sandwich”, where each longer session starts and ends with a car ride. You can also opt for shorter car ride sessions on days when you don’t have time for a longer session in the larger bonding space.

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

[a llama]

(Get ready for a long post, sorry for the inactivity)

Alright so another update on the pre-bonding with Oreo and Annabelle – they have both reached the point where they have little to no reaction when I switch items between their cages, which I think is a sign that bonding is going well, correct? And a lot of things happened during my inactivity: 

 ~ One being that we took Bunnyta to the vet for a checkup on her watery eyes. The vets said that as long as I am keeping a close eye on her and making sure that her eyes are not going red because of the watery discharge, that she should be fine. They also found out that she is actually a boy… so for now I am just going to call him Bunnyto (this also explains why he doesn’t have a feminine bossy attitude like Annabelle does).
 ~ Another thing is that while Annabelle and Ben were both free-roaming in a half-split room, I think one of my siblings accidentally left a small opening in the x-pen separations, which led to Ben finding a way through to Annabelle’s side of the free-roaming area. Unfortunately I was at the store with my family at the time that this happened, so they had a pretty bad fight which left them both with several bite wounds all over their faces, legs and backs (I didn’t see any bleeding out, just red marks that neither of them would let me touch). After to what I assume was at-most 30 minutes spent together, I found Ben resting in Annabelle’s litterbox which I took advantage of to take him back to his side of the room. After everything was taken care of, they both ended up taking a huge nap for the rest of the day and were pretty much back to their old selves after they were finished. That being said, I am glad that things didn’t go as bad as they could have, but now they both have grudges against each other which will be extremely inconvenient to any future bonding I have planned for them .

I also had some time to do several bonding sessions with Oreo and Annabelle:

Session #1:

 ~ Up until now, I have been thoroughly washing Annabelle’s x-pen in hot water and soap to get things as neutral as possible. But, during this bonding session I decided to just try without washing it to see how things went (obviously I had expectations of the worst, so there was much caution in doing so.) Conveniently, I saw no changes in either of their behaviors towards each other, which meant that I could now save a ton of time in the future on not washing the x-pen every single time.

~ Other than that, nothing much in this session changed and it was just tons of the usual head wars, spraying and grooming for the rest of the four hours I was with them.

Session #2:

 ~ Once again, I am no longer washing Annabelle’s x-pen for bonding, in case that wasn’t clear before.

 ~ In this session, Oreo and Annabelle displayed several different positive behaviors that I have never seen with them before, including peacefully eating hay next to each other, grooming themselves next to each other, flopping near each other, binkying and taking a nap next to each other with almost none of my interruption. However, despite all this positive reinforcement, Oreo still refuses to approach Annabelle without having his tail up, which is why I still don’t quite fully trust them to approach each other without being calmed down with some petting first.

 ~ Something I noticed on how head wars have been turning out is that if I’m not petting them and Oreo is bowing his head a little too low for Annabelle’s liking, then she will carelessly nip Oreo on the forehead until he completely stops asking for grooms (I calm them both down a little after every nip so that things don’t go out of hand). Sometimes Oreo “doesn’t care” when Annabelle nips him one or two times after a head war starts , so he keeps coming back for more with his head staying low to the ground and his tail up high. Eventually though, after Oreo has decided that he’s done getting nipped by Annabelle, he either just gives in to her demands by grooming her briefly or hops away to keep to himself for a while (there is the occasional case where Oreo will also just stop bowing his head and go into the loaf position to take a nap in front of Annabelle, which she also doesn’t appreciate because every time this happens she continues demand grooming with her nips).

 ~ I ended the session at 5 and a half hours, just after Oreo had groomed Annabelle.

It was after this session that Annabelle found a way to use her house to jump above the barrier and into Oreo’s cage. I know fora fact that they could not have been together for more than 2 hours, and surprisingly the worst damage that was caused was a bunch of fur pulling. I was taking a nap at the time of the incident, and I was informed of it afterwards my siblings put Annabelle back in her cage and cleaned up all the loose fur. I examined both Oreo and Annabelle for any bite marks I found none, and they didn’t even show any grudges to each other through the cage. Considering that neither of them were hurt and how they didn’t develop any apparent negative feelings towards each other, I would say that could have gone a lot worse.

Session #3:

 ~ Following their incident, I went into this session prepared for any potential aggression that might have built up. Thankfully this concern was not needed and things went mostly normally, except for the fact that Oreo now seemed to be much more “skittish” near Annabelle.     ~ During the first 5-10 minutes of the session, Oreo was extremely generous with grooming and would groom Annabelle pretty much every time she approached him, instead of going into a head war like he usually did. However, after those first few minutes, Oreo went back to going into head wars with Annabelle and she did not appreciate this. Annabelle was suddenly much more demanding than I have seen her in the past and she was resulting to nipping Oreo almost immediately every time she saw that his head was even slightly bowed in a dominant position. Because of this, I went back to petting them both for 5-10 seconds every time they would interact so that they could interact calmly without any excessive nipping.

 ~ It was around a couple hours into the session, and I was noticing that Oreo almost had the power to predict the exact moment before Annabelle was going to nip him, meaning that if Oreo knew he was being too dominant, and he felt Annabelle moving her head, Oreo would immediately have that “surprised jumping” reaction he had every time Annabelle had nipped him previously. I’m not sure if that information is relevant or not, but I just want to make sure that I am being as specific as possible.

 ~ This was the longest session, lasting 6-7 hours.

Session #4:

 ~ I think this must have missed my thoughts beforehand, but for this session I realized that if I did a little bit of organizing, I could make the downstairs storage room a perfect neutralized bonding area for the bunnies. With this information, I now have an area available where I can do a good marathoning session which I am really happy about.

 ~ As I was using this new area now, Oreo and Annabelle were very anxious about the new space and completely ignored each other for the first few minutes while they were exploring.

 ~ After they became familiarized with the new bonding area, I started to see some trust issues going on. Later on in the session, Annabelle began lunging at Oreo every time he starting moving too fast near her sides or back area, which was causing Oreo’s trust with Annabelle to go down pretty quickly. Because of this, I decided that the best thing to do was to teach them that being next to each other was not such a bad thing. As I had a vacuum laying around, I managed to scare them enough that they went to a corner of the pen and huddled up together. I took advantage of this and started to pet them both for at least 30-40 minutes straight. During this time, Annabelle was tempted to nip Oreo into grooming her, but she gave up on that idea pretty quickly and they both fell asleep next to each other. They both took a couple of breaks in between to groom themselves or in Oreo’s case, to groom Annabelle, and they did this all without getting anxious or aggressive.

 ~ At the end of their nap together, Oreo got up, groomed Annabelle, groomed himself and went to go for a stretch. Annabelle started grooming herself as well shortly after. I ended the session there at about 3 hours in as it was getting pretty late.

Questions:

About Annabelle’s nipping habit – when does it become excessive? I can obviously see that Oreo is getting pretty annoyed about having to put up with it while still having to groom Annabelle, but I don’t know exactly how much nipping I should allow. Also, recently Oreo has been grooming my pants every time I finish petting him, probably as a way of showing his gratitude to me. Does this mean he considers me as a bond mate? If so, is this something that will cause him to get depressed if I go away for too long? 

[a llama]

Another question, during all these sessions I have done so far, I have been preventing them from smelling each other’s tails/backs as I have noticed that they have a tendency to also try nipping the other from behind, which always causes unneeded aggression. However, I have never considered whether this actually needs to happen in the bonding process or not. Should I be preventing this behavior or not?

[Sirius&Luna]

A bit of nipping is fine, but if its escalating to fights then it needs to be stopped. Rabbits don’t consider humans bond mates, but licking you means he likes you. If you know something is causing aggression then you should stop it, and hopefully it will get to a point where they stop doing that behaviour at all.

[a llama]

Annabelle is nipping Oreo, sometimes more than just once at a time, pretty much at the start of every interaction they have if I am not there to calm them both down beforehand. This behavior is not necessarily causing any aggression, as for some reason Oreo is not fighting back (his tail goes up but no real aggression comes), but it is definitely causing some distrust between them. And as I mentioned before, the fact that Annabelle is nipping Oreo so much has caused him to develop some sort “anxiety” to being in a head war with Annabelle, and he is obviously not going to get comfortable with her bossing him around all the time. Do you think Annabelle will eventually stop feeling the need to nip Oreo as much as she does now in the future? Is this much nipping even necessary for them to properly sort out dominance?

Also, do you think that doing some forced snuggling with them was the right thing for me to do in order to get them to trust each other a little more? Should I keep doing this until they trust each other to be moving around?

[a llama]

Anyone there?

[DanaNM]

What happens with the nipping? Does it lead to a fight? Is she pulling chunks of fur?

If it’s just nipping and not escalating, and no fur is being pulled, let it happen. Intervene if it starts escalating.

If you felt that the forced snuggle helped, then keep it up. You might want to start and end a session with it to set the tone.

I’ve also always found a change of scenery to be very helpful when things get stagnant, along with car rides.

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

[a llama]

Hi all,

Obviously it has been quite a while since I last posted. And unfortunately, my absence comes with bad news. More specifically, my house burned down around 3 months ago due to some kind of unexpected spark in our gas fireplace. That being said, I am very blessed to have a dad with navy training and a fire-fighting force that responded in mere minutes to the crisis. After experiencing all of this and after the chaos of the situation finally died down, I had found my family and all 5 of our pets transported out of the house and into safety (obviously terrified), but safe. During the next couple of months after the fire, our insurance company was moving us back and forth in between hotels that would support a family of 5 with all our pets, until they finally found a good replacement for our previous home, which is where I am now typing this comment and housing all of our pets where they are currently happy and comfortable.

Bonding progress

Anyways, my family and I have been settled in our temporary rental home for almost 2 months at this point and we now continue to live our lives normally as we did before. During this time, I took several opportunities to get some bonding progress with Oreo and Annabelle. But before I proceed with describing my progress so far, I just recently stumbled upon an article documenting a bonding journey between a dominant, bossy female who was accustomed to being queen (EXACTLY LIKE ANNABELLE) and another dominant male who was not willing to submit to her antics (link – http://www.bunssb.org/bunnies/bonding-two-stubborn-senior-buns/?utm_campaign=newsletter&utm_medium=cpc&utm_source=newslette ). As I read through this article, I found myself realizing how more and more similar my situation was getting to the one being documented in the article. Assuming you are now familiar with this article, I can now say that the current situation with Oreo and Annabelle is very neatly falling into somewhere in between the “First Breakthrough” section and the “Next Plateau” section. This meaning, they can both find peace in eating together, they don’t have a problem relaxing close to each other or even snuggling occasionally with supervision, but they still have certain issues that they have to work out with dominance and trusting each other.

Another thing I need to address before I continue, a little background prior to what I have been describing so far. In the first few sessions I did after we moved into our new rental home, Oreo and Annabelle were somehow almost completely bonded (significant progress since the last bonding session I did months ago at my old house) and required very minimal supervision during sessions which would usually last 4-6 hours or even more without any big issues other than a couple disagreements with dominance (or in the article’s terms, they were pretty much a perfect representation of what the article described in “The Next Plateau”.) It became quite obvious after a few sessions that Oreo and Annabelle were very near to being completely bonded in neutral, so I played along and started putting more and more trust in them. My first move in terms of putting more trust into their bond was getting rid of the idea that they were eating meals alone and I began placing them into the neutral bonding area every time they were hungry. Things were going well with this and they were eating together without any issues, so I took another step forward and introduced a makeshift neutral litterbox made out of some old cardboard into the bonding pen so I could further test their co-existence. Again, they had no apparent issues with sharing a litter box and ate together, side-by-side in a neutral litterbox peacefully. After several more sessions of shared meals in the neutral litterbox, I began getting the idea that they were good enough together that I could trust them enough to be alone for a couple of minutes while I completed small tasks outside the bonding pen. Once again, they showed no issues, so I started taking increasingly larger breaks while periodically checking on them every few minutes to see how they were doing. This went well, until randomly, around the 10th hour of a session while I was taking a break when I heard them scuffling and pulling fur (basically a bunny tornado where they were both trying to bite each others’ butts). I arrived at the scene within seconds and stopped the fight. There were no wounds, but the session had already gone for 10 hours at that point and the scuffle just caused tension levels to skyrocket and they were both completely paranoid of sudden movements past that point. I decided to just end it there because they were both lunging at each other every time they get close and it was quite obvious they needed a break from each other. After this little scuffle (which I am assuming was caused by dominance issues) they unfortunately took a step backwards and lost both their trust and their hierarchy of dominance with each other. The next day after the fight, I put them both back in that same bonding pen, with caution, to see how they were feeling about each other. They could together eat peacefully while they were face-to-face (not side-by-side because they both now had an urge to nip at each others’ tails and genital areas), but that was about it. They could no longer be squished in the litterbox together and they stopped snuggling voluntarily as they both became very anxious and paranoid about sudden movement and when they started smelling each others’ butts.

It was obvious that they had taken a step back from their progress before and it was time to do trust building again. I stopped feeding them together and letting them share a litterbox because tension was a little too high during those activities. I also moved the bonding area into a smaller space in the laundry because the large bonding area they had before was encouraging chasing between them. Another idea I had was to start and end sessions with stress bonding in a small box to start rebuilding a peaceful atmosphere (and so I could transport them together instead of separately, and luckily they were completely peaceful while doing so.) Anyway, they were doing a little better in the laundry than they were doing in their previous bonding area, meaning they stopped the chasing and almost prioritized exploring the unfamiliar space over annoying each other. But they were still using every opportunity they had to nip at each others’ tails which was very quick to escalate if I didn’t calm them down (from that point I completely forbade any tail sniffing and I pushed them away every time I saw them trying because it became too much of a problem). I had a vacuum handy with me just in case I felt like they needed a forced snuggle, and they did need it (alot). After around 4 or 5 sessions, each lasting between 30 minutes to an hour, of almost non-stop petting and forced snuggles, they were beginning to calm down and stopped being so persistent on trying to nip the other.

This brings me to where I am now, somewhere in between “The First Breakthrough” and the “The Next Plateau” as I said before. This meaning:
– they can again eat peacefully together with minimal tension
– in their most recent session, they took their first voluntary nap together while snuggling since the fight
– They are back to how they were months ago at the house, with their dominance completely undecided (Head wars during almost all interactions other than eating, and both of them occasionally getting the urge to mount the other than nip the other’s tail)
– Annabelle feels very compelled to nip Oreo when he gets too persistent in head wars, but I’ve been trying my hardest with her to discourage that behavior and only let it happen if she really feels like she needs to show dominance
– Oreo’s behavior is almost perfectly described from this line in the article “Bertha(Oreo) would groom BunJovi(Annabelle), but wasn’t fully submitting. They both still insisted on being dominant.”
– I definitely don’t trust them with being alone anymore, but I am starting to feel gradually more confident that they can handle increasing amounts of uninterrupted interaction without my constant petting. I feel like after they have dominance established again, everything will go uphill from there.

QUESTIONS

– Due to curiosity, I did a quick search on why Oreo and Annabelle are always so compelled to annoy each other by sniffing each others’ tails and sometimes even nipping down there. I found this thread on the forum ( https://binkybunny.com/FORUM/tabid/54/aft/155724/Default.aspx ) and saw some people suggesting that they do this in an effort to almost “verify” that the hierarchy of dominance is the way that it should be. The problem, however, with this behavior is that it always starts somewhat gentle but then quickly becomes more of an aggressive act and I have even seen the aggressor’s tail raise while doing so. This brings me to my question, they obviously need to find some kind of way to resolve who will be dominant in their relationship. As I said before, I occasionally catch one taking advantage of a situation where the potential victim is in a vulnerable position to assert some dominance through mounting, which is also an unfortunate abuse of the vulnerable bunny’s trust in the aggressor. Mounting and/or tail nipping almost always quickly escalates into a bunny tornado or scuffle which is definitely not ideal because then all my work with them is down the drain. My real confusion is how do I find a balance? How do I allow them to convey dominance, while also maintaining a trusting and peaceful atmosphere? If I let them mount or nip, it almost always escalates as I have said. But if I don’t allow them to do anything, they will probably just keep on doing head wars until one of them supposedly submits. Should I let things escalate to a certain point? Should there be a line or threshold that I should set in terms of escalation? Anyway, you get the point.

[DanaNM]

Oh my, this is quite the update! I’m so sorry for the loss of your home, and so thankful that you all got out safe!

I’m glad you found that article helpful, I wrote it ! (in case you didn’t know )

What strikes me about your progression is that the big breakthrough happened in a new space, and after a stressful time. So, I think you should try a new location, and incorporate some stressing.

I finally made the most progress with Bertha and Bun Jovi when I moved to a new spot, and I let them interact a bit more freely. I started allowing a bit of chasing. I would have allowed mounting. But I did not allow escalation or circling. It also helped me to focus less on WHO would be dominant, and more on allowing them to safely communicate. It’s honestly hard to tell with my two who is dominant at this point, but they both seem happy with the arrangement.

When they get into their head wars, do you pet them? Since they are in a phase of distrust, petting them in this time can help a lot.

So, I’m thinking if you are to continue in the current space, use the petting technique when they get into their head wars. Try really really hard to end on a positive note, even if that means making the sessions a bit shorter. Also consider a brand new location, as well as some regular stressing before sessions.

I’m also not one for deadlines, but given the ups and downs and amount of time you’ve been at it, you are also at the point where you might consider a last-ditch marathon in a brand-spanking new neutral territory. Like, give yourself 24 -48 hours in a brand new spot (as I did with Bertha and BJ), and if they aren’t showing good progress then throw in the towel for a while and give them a break to reset. It is possible for buns to start getting into negative cycles, and a break can help.

I admire your persistence! And again, so glad to hear you all got out OK!

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

[a llama]

I just did another session (before you posted this advice), and there was no tail sniffing this time (progress or just luck?). There was, however, tons and tons of head wars. And to answer your question, yes I pet them when they get into head wars because of course it can get a little tense at times. They have recently (within the last few previous sessions) started to even give up on the head wars and just start napping with their faces squashed because apparently that’s how calm they become when I am petting them in a head war. When they do this I don’t need to be petting them every single second, just when I see tension is getting too high. Also, one small, but important difference between my rabbits and yours is that Annabelle has NEVER groomed Oreo, not even for a split second. She has given him “warning” nips on the forehead that almost looked like grooming when she was getting annoyed with Oreo’s dominant persistence, but never really groomed like your two while they were bonding. I’m not sure if this will be a problem in the future if they were ever to be completely bonded, but I thought I should just point that out. I am even considering trying to use the squashed banana method to see if that is just enough to convey the “grooming” idea to her.

To continue with the topic of that last session, I would say that they just explored and did periodic head wars for the first hour or so of the session until they got bored of that and proceeded to eat together from the pile of hay. When they were both finished, they both kinda just huddled in the corner and started loafing together and fell asleep. Other than the fact that Annabelle tried shoving her head under Oreo a few times during the nap (Oreo didn’t care and just continued loafing), they napped together completely peacefully otherwise. This is the second time I’ve seen them do this since the fight, and I am considering this to be progress (correct me if I’m wrong).

Another thing to note, the bonding area I’m using right now is the third new area I’ve switched to since the first one they had their fight in. And a few questions about your advice so far:

•  All my bunnies are housed in only one room of the house where they can do everything including exercise without leaving. Where I take them to bond is all the way on the other half of this new house which none of them have had the chance to even see by themselves, much less establish territory. Would this area in the house count as “brand-spanking new” or should I just go in the garage for safe measures and marathon when I have the chance?
• With all things being considered, I would estimate that I have probably been trying to bond Oreo and Annabelle for 3-4 months for the 8 months I have owned Annabelle so far. And if I am remembering correctly, they have never had a real, full-out violent fight and in their first introduction just started with really tense head wars and Oreo occasionally spraying when feeling threatened during that first month or so of bonding. So far, the most progress I’ve had is that Oreo stopped spraying, Annabelle has calmed down on nipping, they trust each other more, but in all this time, they still have not not figured out dominance and I feel like that is because I am not allowing them to express themselves enough. SO, when you say “don’t allow escalation”, does that mean I should not allow any mounting or tail sniffing because they lead to escalation? Because I am very confused in terms of what I should I allow that counts as “safe communication.”
• Now that I realize it, they have been in this indecisive head war phase for almost the entire time they have been bonding, with the exception of the little progress they got when they got to the new house. So maybe this can almost be compared to the “Plateau” phase your bunnies had (with the difference of strictly one-way grooming and more intense head wars), because I have not been seeing any real, significant breakthroughs other than small naps together and Oreo peacefully submitting to Annabelle in a head war. Do you think that total neutrality and a bigger bonding area would really help them get along? If this is really the case, how would I set up this bonding area? Should there be a litterbox? A water bowl? Should I treat a marathon like a normal session and intervene any time I would see fit or should I allow a little more escalation than normal so they can work out their issues? Also, should I be allowed to sleep? Because if I sleep and they start fighting that is an entire session ruined just because I decided to sleep. And with the possibility that I sleep through the fight and they develop a long term grudge for each other, like Annabelle and Ben, because the fight got too intense, I’m not sure if I am willing to risk that. If I do actually decide to marathon, I might not even sleep at all given all the risks..
• One last question, when one of them is laying down somewhere with their feet kicked back, more often than not the other one will take advantage of that vulnerability and go straight to smelling and messing around with the first one’s tail, which is really, really annoying for the both of them and is a major contributor to their lack of trust with each other. Is this behavior normal? Should I allow this to happen, or should I keep preventing it by putting my hand in the way every time one of them attempts to do this?

[DanaNM]

That’s great that they eventually fall asleep in the head wars with petting. 

Eventually you will want to see grooming, but sometimes the grooming doesn’t happen until the very end. I’ve had three pairs now, and the significance of grooming has varied. My first pair had nothing nothing nothing for 3 months (fighting, followed by sitting on opposite sides of the room scared of each other for what seemed like ages), then one day they just decided they were madly in love. 

Second pair was a bit faster, but still no grooming until the final phase. They got to the point where they were comfortable napping near each other first, and sharing food etc in a relaxed way. Then grooming finally happened in the marathon. 

Third pair, (Bertha and BJ), there was grooming more quickly, but things still took a long time to settle out. 

Your most recent session sounds very positive. If they are comfortable enough to sleep around each other, that’s a very good thing.  

The area on the other side of the house does sound neutral, but after enough time in a neutral space it slowly becomes less neutral. So, you might try the garage for the marathon (if it can be used comfortably) since it will be completely foreign to them. That said, your last session sounded great, so you should try to replicate those conditions a few times in a row in the meantime.

Your point about what to allow is an important one. It really is a delicate balance, but my feeling is that you should try letting those behaviors go just a bit longer and see what happens. How quickly does tail sniffing and mounting escalate to an actual scuffle (with fur pulled, etc.)? If that sniffing just leads to lunging, circling, and/or a chase, I would allow it, and stop it once it leads to whatever the behavior that precedes the fight is. You also might find that the sniffing used to immediately lead to a fight, but now that they are more calm, you have a bit more time to let them interact. In general, mounting and tail sniffing and all of that should be allowed. With Bertha and Bun Jovi, I realized that I had to allow a little bit of chasing (so a large space was important). I think the act of Bertha retreating from the chase helped convince Bun Jovi that she wasn’t going to challenge him. Once I saw her always running away and never turning and circling, I knew we were on the right track.  

I’ve always had better luck with large spaces, because I could actually allow some chasing without it leading to a fight. You can imagine if a bunny tries to run away in retreat in a small space, there isn’t too many places to go, so the other rabbit might interpret that as circling, hence leading to a fight. I used 2 x-pens linked up for my marathon. It can also help to have lots of obstacles, like tunnels, and at least 2 hiding spots that have at least 2 exits. I add a water bowl, and put a huge pile of hay in the center of the area. I put treats all over to give them something positive to do. Scatter feed their pellets, give them a huge pile of veggies to share at meal times. Lots of new things to chew on (no familiar toys or anything). I also like to add new chew things and treats at times when they are most active and getting a bit antsy (morning and evening). I don’t add a litter box until they seem basically bonded…. It’s messy I know, but litter boxes can cause disputes. In the marathon, you want them to have things to do when they get bored, just like in their normal lives. I think this really helps them realize “oh, this other bunny is not going away… I guess we better get used to this”.  So for Bertha and BJ, I had told myself that if after 24 hours they weren’t making progress, I would not continue. But, they did great their first night, so on day 2 I added the litter box. 

Regarding sleep, I have always “slept” next to the pen, but you definitely don’t sleep very well! The first night I usually bolt awake at the slightest sound. You will definitely hear them if they start circling and scuffling, and will be able to intervene before it gets serious if you are right there next to them. Considering the scuffling that broke out in that really long session you had, you might have a couple helpers lined up for times when you need a bathroom break, etc. It’s also OK to separate them briefly if you need to leave them unsupervised for a bit. If they start scuffling the entire session is not ruined, sometimes these little interactions are important. If you see the amount of scuffling increasing and increasing, then you should re-assess whether to continue.

On your last point, BJ does this to Bertha all the time! She tends to not mind it not that they are bonded. Allow the sniffing, as the bun being sniffed needs to establish boundaries with the other bun. If they start circling then stop them, but wait for the other bun to react before intervening. 

In general, I think at this point, you can start of the session with some petting, but you want to try not to hover, and just let them do their thing as much as possible. 

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

[a llama]

I don’t have much time to include background info or bonding progress right now, but in short, they are doing very well as they now will take several naps together in a single session with minimum confrontation (although dominance is still undecided). But as of now, I have just started the marathon in the garage and I have just finished setting everything up. However, I am still confused about a few things with the marathon:
– Should I put some kind of towel or rug down for them so they have some traction to run around or just leave it as the bare garage floor?
– I recently finished building some crude cardboard houses for them and placed them into their separate cages a few days ago. At this point they are probably not that neutral anymore so do you think I should include those houses in the bonding area so they have those hiding places you recommended? I don’t really have any other things to make as hiding places for them, so its either their used houses or nothing.

Anyway that’s all I have for now, if I somehow get enough time in my breaks from the marathon to update the thread I’ll try and do it, but I doubt that will happen so most likely I will get back here in a few days as you did with your bunnies.

[DanaNM]

Thats a great update.

I put puppy pee pads down for my two’s marathon, so I think towels would prob be nice (for warmth and to prevent them from standing in pee).

I would leave the boxes out at first. The hiding spots are not an absolute necessity. You might add them in if they are doing great after 48 hours and you want to start transitioning to semi-neutral.

Good luck! Sending good bonding vibes!

. . . The answers provided in this discussion are for general guideline purposes only. The information is not intended to diagnose or treat your pet. Seek the advice of your veterinarian or a qualified behaviorist.  

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