Reversal of Litter Training *dire help needed*

[burythelight]

So Otto, now neutered, was litter trained, but his little "room" was in front of my closet so I moved him to the other side of my room. Just so you know, his "room" is a corner of my room that is gated off. He has his cage in there, but it's open so he can run in and out of it as he pleases. Until two days ago, the entire area was lined with newspaper. Now he has a nice wide space and a box to jump onto that is his "perch". At first, he remained litter trained and peed and pooped in the right place. Slowly, he began peeing in the wrong places.

At first it was one other location, so I moved the litter box to that new spot, hoping he'd keep peeing in the box. Instead, he switched back to the old location (sans litter box). Then after a while, he just started peeing in random spots all over the place in his "room". Thankfully, we had the place lined with newspaper and, underneath that, a plastic tarp so that it didn't leak to the floor. However, this meant cleaning up the area every day, which is really quite ridiculous. Meanwhile, his litter box wasn't getting used at all!

Then I thought that I should move his litter box back into his cage because when I was up at school and he was only kept in his cage, he peed in there religiously and I was hoping it would work again if the litter box was back in its kind of original spot. But that didn't work. He continued to pee everywhere.

Four days ago, I decided that I think that Otto considers the newspaper his new litter box, so I decided to take the chance and clean up the area, take away the tarp and throw away the newspaper, and let him roam free with a clean litter box in tact in his cage. But within hours, he had peed on the floor. I tried cleaning that up and putting the paper towel in the litter box. I also decided to keep him in the cage until he was good with the litter box for while.

But within two days, he was off to his old habits, but now in his cage! He took the cover of his litter box and flipped it off of the litter box and decided to nest in there and pee elsewhere!

This is really getting frustrating and I have absolutely no idea how to deal with him.

This has been going on for two months!

Please please help! I miss when he actually peed in one spot.

 

[funnybunnymummy]

I'd say he's protesting the move.

Since it's been going on 2 months, I think you're going to be looking at litter training all over again. I've had Gus "protest" on me a few times. My solution is to introduce another litter box or two(don't move his original one!). Once he's using all the litter boxes, slowly start removing them, one at a time, till he's back to just one.

Of course, there's as many ways to tackle this as there are rabbits. You'll just have to keep trying different tactics till one works!

Hope that helps!

Rue

 

[elrohwen]

Has he been to the vet lately? The first thing I think of when a rabbit stops using their litter box is a UTI. It might be worth getting checked out since you've tried everything else you can think of.

 

[burythelight]

I did and my vet thought it was behavioral.

 

[featpete]

Does he have a "bed" area to use? My bunny was peeing everywhere and someone suggested that I give him a comfy spot where he could rest and sleep, which worked wonders. I didn't realize that he was using his litter box to hang out. If you can entice your rabbit with an even more comfortable pee spot, that might help?

Everyone always suggests to clean wherever they've peed with vinegar so that you remove the smell (so that they've forgotten they've peed there)

 

[burythelight]

That sounds plausible. Can you suggest what kind of stuff I could do to make a "bed" area?

 

[funnybunnymummy]

Gus has a boxhe uses as a bed area. It's just an upside down box with adoor cut in it. Most rabbits like to have some sort of overhead protection in their bed area.

Hope that's the solution!

Rue

 

[jfinner1]

Xenos does this every time I move his cage or change the type of litter... His last protest (because of a litter change from that horse bedding stuff to yesterday's news), caused him to pee with great accuracy into his food bowl. I switched back, and he started using his box again. He's probably just upset or confused because of the change. Since you can't "put it back" you'll probably have to start from scratch...

 

[featpete]

At first I just put a little cardboard box with holes (as someone else mentioned they did) but that wasn't good enough for him. Adding a small towel did the trick!

He peed on it the very first night but since then hasn't peed outside of his poop box!