Training the Untrainable?

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hellogina

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I have a male and female bonded pair — both altered. My male is litterbox trained but my female refuses. They share a 3 level condo with a large litterbox on each level. She will pee and poo in the litterbox sometimes, but will indiscriminately pee and poo everywhere else too. It's not just a little bit of pee to mark the area... there will be puddles all over the enclosure floor. It's disgusting and is so hard to keep up with cleaning. Also, she gets mad when I clean it. Like I'm messing up her stuff. I don't want to keep the bunnies outside or in the basement, but I'm fearing I'll have to if this doesn't improve.
 
I have the same issue with my Ellie. She and her brother are bonded like crazy, but since she uses the bathroom everywhere but her litter box, I have them in separate cages beside each other. I'm interested in what other people have done, because I'd love to just let them stay together. During playtime outside of the cage, they're just so happy. :)
 
I can't know how much she's peeing, but if she seems to be peeing quite a lot more than you would think a rabbit normally should, then it's possible she's got something going on, kidney and liver issues can be associated with excess peeing. I'm not saying that she is definitely sick, but excess urine is definitely a cause for concern and it might be worth getting her checked out. If it is simply behavioural, I'm honestly not sure how to prevent it. What are you cleaning up the pee with? And do you have any other bedding in the rest of the cage besides the litter box?
 
Thanks for the replies. She doesn't seem to be peeing in excess. Just not where she's supposed to. I clean it with enzyme cleaner for pets so that it breaks down the urine. On the bottom floor, I have linoleum. She pushes the hay out of the litterbox and then pees on that. On the top two floor I have towels that I change out once they're too stinky. It's not the best set up, as the pee runs off the linoleum and through the cracks of the hutch. I'm about to do a serious overhaul and line the bottom with truck bed liner so I can seal it up. Hoping it will provide some traction for them, and that they don't chew it.
 
My comment is probably not going to help since it's a mystery to me why so many rabbits will just on their own take to litter box training, and some won't.

When I bought my two Flemmish babies at the bunny farm, they were in an outside perhaps 10 foot by 10 foot enclosure..there were shelves /cages for them and the other rabbits to hop up onto and sleep. All the rabbits pee'd and poop'd on the concrete enclosure floor..no litter box training.. The hocks of my two girls were yellow stained from pee on the enclosure floor. We brought them home and placed them in a pen with a litter box in our living room. We initially let them loose in the living room/dining room when we were at home and placed several litter boxes in the living room/dining room. They just automatically took to peeing in their litter boxes! Nothing at all could be said to be litter box training..they just did it naturally (like my previous rabbit also)!!

The above being said, our now fertile girls do have a pee marking issue. We've been through this with our previous Bunny. They want to mark territory. Bunny's pee marking period lasted about 4 to 6 weeks (?), our present Flemmish babies are also showing a decline in pee marking....since they've marked everything! Understand about pee marking..they do not void their entire bladder for pee marking...a marking behavior can only involve one or two tablespoons of pee....so it's not sometimes all that bad. With hardwood floors and leather furniture, we can here can deal with these incidents.

I have experience with 3 bunnies, but once we had our previous Bunny neutered, her marking incidents came to a stop. I'm hoping that will happen with my two Flemmish girls.
 
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