Seemingly in love with my dog – litter box issues

[E Mac]

I apologize if there is already a post for this. I tried searching with google, but didn’t find anything and the forum search currently won’t load for me.

*Background info to help hopefully, feel free to skip to the next paragraph* I got Harvey a month ago or so now. He is around 1 yr old. I adopted him from the local humane society where he had been neutered and kept for about 3 months. He had been rescued from an abandoned pet store where they kept the buns in fish tanks. For this reason I’m not entirely sure what his past was like or what breed he is; let alone how big he will get. Harvey is the second bunny I’ve had in this house, though the first one was just a weekend for a student. I got him because I’m a high school Ag teacher and wanted a bunny friend in the classroom. He comes home with me every night and my local vet who neutered him thought he would do well in this situation with some TLC, especially since while he’s my first bunny, he is by no means my first rehabbed rescue. So onto the issue:

At first, I only let Harvey get out and explore my living room, which we bunny proofed for the most part and are always on the lookout to bunny proof some more. That required keeping our bedroom door shut however, which is where our two dog’s crates are. All the animals are welcome in our bedroom as a typical rule. The dogs were pouting something fierce because they couldn’t get to their crates and our beds, so I opened up the door. I can’t put a baby gate in the door because my dogs know they aren’t supposed to jump baby gates and Harvey will just jump it any way. He came into our bedroom and was pretty well supervised, but not perfectly. A few days after this I realized he was going into, my dog, Molly’s crate and pooping and peeing in it. He liked to dig first. I cleaned it up and shut the crate so he couldn’t get in. This just caused him to start going in the corners between the crate and the wall. I have cleaned that up and put a litter box there. He still will go in those spots if I’m not completely focused on him while the door is open and refuses to use the litter box. I have tried a well cleaned box, a slightly used box, and a dirty box. It makes no difference. When he goes he just goes to another corner that doesn’t have the litter box. 

He also tries to jump on Molly’s back sometimes still too. She has warned him off multiple times, but he still will try once in a while. Molly seems to be a very appealing lady because she’s gotten a lot of attention from many different animals including dogs. Her other biggest fan is my mom’s cat currently, who curls up against her and tries to groom her whenever he thinks he can get away with it. Any thoughts?

*Note: my dogs and cats are very well behaved with Harvey and were with the bunny before him as well. I am careful about interactions and he is not allowed near my mom’s Jack Russel’s. If he is out I put up a baby gate so they can’t get into my house.*

[Serenity]

It seems to me like Harvey is getting territorial? Like he’s trying to mark Molly’s crate as his own. Maybe try keeping him locked in a much smaller space until he learns that his litter box is the ONLY place he’s allowed to go then when he’s getting better about it (no more accidents) then you can gradually give him more freedom until he learns that he’s not allowed to pee anywhere but his box. I’m not sure what his attitude toward your dog is, however. How does he act toward your other dog (you mentioned you have 2)?

[E Mac]

He tries to play with Jaz our other dog or at least that is how she takes it. My mom brought up the possibility that he is trying to claim Molly as his own. I thought about it more and generally agree, since I have noticed now that he doesn’t interact much with our male cat Orion, but loves our females and gets up and close with them a lot.

Since I wrote this I have locked him out of the bedroom. I typically just lock the dogs on the side of the gate I’m going to mainly be on and they have stopped pouting as much. Harvey did think about jumping the gate a couple of times and then chewed on it once, but every time I noticed those type of actions I would just close the bedroom door. I typically leave the door open to help with air flow around the house (very spotty temp wise). I have created a dig box for him, though he currently thinks its the devil. I have been giving him more attention as well and that has helped with some of the other naughty things he was getting into. I noticed if he’s digging at the carpet or chewing on furniture if I just lay down on the floor near by and try to interact whether that be by playing with toys or petting he stops doing the naughty stuff. I don’t usually give him attention right away though, since I don’t want him to start thinking that every time he want’s my attention he should attack things.

On that note, he likes to come up to me and touch my foot sometimes. I have been reading it as a hello and I think I’m right because its not aggressive like and more and more often he’ll let me bend down and pet his head. We’re still building trust in that I won’t pick him up though.

[Serenity]

It seems like you’ve got this down! Sounds like he’s definitely doing better, you’re a natural. I’d say just keep up the good work and see how things go!

[Author]

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