Arrrgghhhhhhh......need advice

[purplepeacock]

my mom is coming next weekend to visit and she's bringing her dog---a 13 year old rat terrior. now i know the dog is ok with rabbits b/c my sister has a bunny and maggy (the dog) is used to being around the bunny. however my bunny liffey is not around other animals. i don't know what to expect. maggy will just ignore liffey and if lif tries to snif her she'll run away and hide someplace......maggy is more afraid of the bunny and birds and usually spends her day hiding from both. i just hope liffey doesn't smell the dog and then starts spraying everywhere. we had an issue today where we left liffey out of his cage and he went over to the couch and hopped up and then lifted his tail and peed. now liffey never lifts his tail to pee. we never know when he's peeing until he hops away and we see the mark. this time he had his tail high up in the air and he peed a lot. i don't get it. he's been running the living room for a month now. he only ever pees in his litter box. he had one accident about 2 weeks ago and that's b/c he couldn't get down from where he was and he was out of the cage for 3 hours. but today it's like he did it on purpose. also the past 2 days he's been dumping dirty litter all over his nic cage. he pees in the litter than takes only the dirty pee litter out and scatters it all over his cage. he's been fixed for a month now. i know the hormones are still there but this all just started with him. i don't get it. i have this fear that he is just going to pee everywhere when maggy gets here. any thoughts??? suggestions??? any rabbit stew recipes anyone?? ok i was just kidding on that last one....although i did threaten him today that i was gonna cook him and feed him to the homeless if he didn't knock it off.

 

[kherrmann3]

I have a terrible memory, how old is Liffey, and is he neutered?

 

[purplepeacock]

8 months and yes he's fixed. i never had problems with him before he was fixed. and the first week after he was fixed he was a little pig pen then he went back to his anal-retentive neat and tidy self. and now he's back to pig pen.

 

[kherrmann3]

How do you clean up his urine? Do you use a vinegar/water solution? I've heard it prevents them from re-marking there.

Is it possible that you or someone else has offended him in some way? Toby will pee on our things if we really tick him off.

 

[purplepeacock]

i do use vinegar and water to clean it up. this is only his second pee outside his litter pan. the other day he was sniffing the spot where he had his accident but he didn't pee there he only sniffed. i think he was pissed about something b/c he really put on the dramatics doing it and he was mad that i cleaned his cage. he keeps peeing in his litter box and then throwing the dirty litter all over the nic pen. and he's been "digging" up a storm in his cage. doing a lot of "redecorating" wich is fine. he's always moving stuff around. i might have to get a covered litter box so the litter doesn't fly everywhere. but i'm afraid then he won't come out of it.

 

[kherrmann3]

Here is the link to a page titled "The Language of Lagomorphs". This is the insult page. Maybe if will help you in understand his body language.

Language of Lagomorphs - R-E-S-P-E-C-T is What My Bun Demands of Me
http://language.rabbitspeak.com/rabbittalk_insults.html

 

[purplepeacock]

sometimes i get the one eyes stare but he wants to be picked up and held and petted. i think maybe he's got some internal frustration going on and maybe it's not about me....lol.....now he has no place to pee b/c he flipped the litter box for the 4th time this morning and i'm leaving for work and i'm not going to fix it and refill it. 4 times is enough now he'll have to pee on the coroplast. aarrgghhhhh.........

 

[kherrmann3]

Have you tried fixing his litter pan in one area with clips? The one in Toby's cage HAS to be fixed to the wire, otherwise he will flip it. This is what I resorted to using because of the mess he would cause. It locks into the corner with two plastic snap-on type locks. The most Toby can do with it now is flip it up and the litter hits the back of the pan.

Super Pet "Long John" Hi-Side Litter Pan.
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=6067+15323+17016&pcatid=17016

Here is another type of lock-on litter pan.
http://www.drsfostersmith.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=6067+15323+14608&pcatid=14608

 

[purplepeacock]

i have the first one that you sent a pic of. it just isn't locked into the side of the cage. he "digs" and flings all the carefresh out. but i had to laugh b/c when i got home today there was a piece of carefresh roughly the size of a quarter and that was where he peed and there was all these poops rolling in the bottom on the plastic part. i didn't bother cleaning up the carefresh that he flung all over since it was clean carefresh i just put a scoop of new in and so far he's left it alone. i guess i'll reconsider making bunnystew and feeding him to the homeless....lol.....

 

[slavetoabunny]

purplepeacock wrote:

now he has no place to pee b/c he flipped the litter box for the 4th time this morning and i'm leaving for work and i'm not going to fix it and refill it. 4 times is enough now he'll have to pee on the coroplast. aarrgghhhhh.........

Sparky is an olympic quality litter pan flipper. My hubby rigged up this:

Close-up:

He drilled a hole in each end of the litter pan and secured it with a bungee cord around the bars. It is very easy to remove for cleaning too. It works great!

 

[Evey]

That is an great idea! My rabbits don't flip their litter boxes, but they do seem to enjoy moving them all around their cages. This will be my next project

Thanks,

Kathy



slavetoabunny wrote:

purplepeacock wrote:

now he has no place to pee b/c he flipped the litter box for the 4th time this morning and i'm leaving for work and i'm not going to fix it and refill it. 4 times is enough now he'll have to pee on the coroplast. aarrgghhhhh.........

Sparky is an olympic quality litter pan flipper. My hubby rigged up this:

Close-up:

He drilled a hole in each end of the litter pan and secured it with a bungee cord around the bars. It is very easy to remove for cleaning too. It works great!