Eel_oh_Eel
Member
(if you'd like the abridged version of this post, it's mostly "My bunny will only poo on my couch and nowhere else, and goes out of his way to do so - Help!")
I brought home a new bunny last week - He is just about two months old, and I was not sure if he would be physically capable of being litter trained yet. (Most of my pet knowledge comes from my rats, and I know that they lack much control over what (and where) they do until they're older.)
Well - That theory got shot out of the window right away. When I brought him home, I let him settle in to his new cage and intended to let him stay there for at least the entire day so he could adjust. Well, after about four hours, I realized that even though he'd spend most of the day chowing down, there wasn't any poo in his cage. Being that I've done an overabundance of research and am a very paranoid person, I was very alarmed - I know he should probably be droppin' one every few seconds, minutes at the most, and thought maybe the stress was causing some intestinal problems.
His cage was on my futon as I wanted him to be confined to a smaller area at first, and didn't think he'd have the gall to jump to the floor for at least a few days. Well, I opened the door to investigate him - He happily ran right out, and bam - Relieved himself all over my futon. And I mean ALL over. I was happy to see everything was working ok down below, so I let it go, and left the cage door open for a while.
After half an hour of getting some good pets (turns out he wasn't even a tiny bit intimidated by his new home) I put him back in his cage, as it was getting close to bed time for me. Told him he was a good boy, went to bed.
Woke up ten hours later - Not a single poo in the cage. Opened the door. He ran out. Again, all over my futon.
I can't easily block the futon off (I tried, turns out he's sneaky though.) I tried taking all his droppings and putting them in a corner of the cage he doesn't sleep in - For some reason, he individually moved them all in to a pile in the center of the cage, but still won't go in there. Right now, I've put a litter box ON the futon, and am trying to get him to go in there. No interest!
Heck, I even let him run around in the living room with us while we were watching a movie - After twenty minutes, he jumped a good three feet on to the couch (a pretty amazing feat I think, he's pretty tiny.) JUST to relieve himself. It isn't even the same couch!
I'm at a loss already - I know it's been shy of a week, but I don't want this habit to grow strong, and want to know if there is anything I can do to discourage him from this behavior, or even better - If someone has some insite as to WHY he was doing this.
I asked the rescue I got him from, they said that he didn't have access to a couch or anything like it previously - Besides small amounts of playtime on the floor every day, he was mostly cage confined.
I brought home a new bunny last week - He is just about two months old, and I was not sure if he would be physically capable of being litter trained yet. (Most of my pet knowledge comes from my rats, and I know that they lack much control over what (and where) they do until they're older.)
Well - That theory got shot out of the window right away. When I brought him home, I let him settle in to his new cage and intended to let him stay there for at least the entire day so he could adjust. Well, after about four hours, I realized that even though he'd spend most of the day chowing down, there wasn't any poo in his cage. Being that I've done an overabundance of research and am a very paranoid person, I was very alarmed - I know he should probably be droppin' one every few seconds, minutes at the most, and thought maybe the stress was causing some intestinal problems.
His cage was on my futon as I wanted him to be confined to a smaller area at first, and didn't think he'd have the gall to jump to the floor for at least a few days. Well, I opened the door to investigate him - He happily ran right out, and bam - Relieved himself all over my futon. And I mean ALL over. I was happy to see everything was working ok down below, so I let it go, and left the cage door open for a while.
After half an hour of getting some good pets (turns out he wasn't even a tiny bit intimidated by his new home) I put him back in his cage, as it was getting close to bed time for me. Told him he was a good boy, went to bed.
Woke up ten hours later - Not a single poo in the cage. Opened the door. He ran out. Again, all over my futon.
I can't easily block the futon off (I tried, turns out he's sneaky though.) I tried taking all his droppings and putting them in a corner of the cage he doesn't sleep in - For some reason, he individually moved them all in to a pile in the center of the cage, but still won't go in there. Right now, I've put a litter box ON the futon, and am trying to get him to go in there. No interest!
Heck, I even let him run around in the living room with us while we were watching a movie - After twenty minutes, he jumped a good three feet on to the couch (a pretty amazing feat I think, he's pretty tiny.) JUST to relieve himself. It isn't even the same couch!
I'm at a loss already - I know it's been shy of a week, but I don't want this habit to grow strong, and want to know if there is anything I can do to discourage him from this behavior, or even better - If someone has some insite as to WHY he was doing this.
I asked the rescue I got him from, they said that he didn't have access to a couch or anything like it previously - Besides small amounts of playtime on the floor every day, he was mostly cage confined.
