April 22, 2009

Progress!

Dare I say, that after 4 days of BunLov being an outright punk to Mayah, today we have finally taken a baby step forward.

Now, I've been trying a bunch of techniques that I found on this here interwebs and all of them have failed.

The list:

Switching cages:
Supposedly to get them used to each others scents. Well they just pee and poop everywhere when I do that, marking their territory I guess. They just decided "you take me out of my home, I shit in this one". As much as I enjoyed cleaning the cages day and night, and mopping up puddles of pee after having very well liter trained buns, I had to stop this.

Using a "stunt bunny":
This one involved me killing two plush toys, stuffing them with each rabbits fur and rolling them around their litter for a few days. Again, a technique to get them used to each others stinkyness. Mayah immediately started licking the Bunlov double. But she's not the problem, now is she?. Mr. Attitude however immediately started biting, punching, nearly ripped the ear off of it the first 10 min. So after a few days, while Mayah slept lovingly next to the BunLov double, her double was hanging off the edge of cage, dangling by a half eaten ear and clearly unloved.

Changing the neutral bonding space:
The first neutral space- my room turned into Mayah's territory. I knew that it wouldn't work after the first few days since she left poo's and tiny pee puddles there immediately after being released. After a few days there, I decided to use the kitchen, bathroom, bathtub, and hallway. I'm still doing these rotations, keeping them on their toes. They're not marking these spaces so at least that's good. Too soon to tell if it's working.

So what has finally really worked? Scaring the crap out of them of course! Why didn't I think of that before. Take my poor cute bunnies and make them have a heart attack. How did I do this? No, I didn't release them to the hounds but from the look on their faces, I might as well have done just that.

Here's what I did. First I had already had a session where he growled and lunged at her 3 times. After a 30 min break I put them in the tub. They ignored each other. As soon as I saw him get ify, I took the curtains (I have lovely metal pole and metal curtain clips that are the noisiest thing in this apartment besides the upstairs neighbors) and yanked them across the pole. They both immediately stopped in their tracks, ears forward and eyeballs about to pop out of their heads. I kept yanking back and forth, they inched closer and closer to each other. When I stopped, Mayah buried her head under BunLov and he, he, he LICKED HER! Yay. A tiny lick- twice actually but he did it! Yay! After 4 days of pure hate, he showed her some lovin!

Next time they're going on a NY cab ride. I'll probably have baby bunnies after putting them through that.

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