Litter Trained Rabbit always goes on bed

Question
Hello,

I have a Holland Lop, spayed. She is completely litter-trained. Her room is in the bedroom. The only problem is she goes on my bed! She would hop on there and start to poop everywhere, as soon as I take her off she stops. When she is running around on the floor she always runs to her cage when she needs to go, always. But she loves any opportunity she can get to run on my bed so she can poop/pee there. It has gotten so bad I have been keeping her in her cage all the time. Any advice? Unfortunately the bedroom is the only room where I could keep her, but its big for her to run around.I feel bad leaving her in her cage, its not fun for either of us.

Answer
Dear Jeni,

Because your bed smells strongly of your scent, your bunny is likely marking the territory as her property, too.  You're hers, so your bed is, too.  Think of it as a sort of sideways compliment. :)

How to get her to stop?  That's the tougher part.  You can try to keep her off the bed by putting boxes and other things on top to discourage her.  But honestly the way that might be easiest on both of you is a mechanical solution:

Go to Marshalls and buy 2-3 mattress pads, preferably water-resistant.  Buy a size or two bigger than your mattress (King is probably best).  After you've made your bed in the morning. slip the mattress cover over the entire bed.  

Your bunny can now play on the bed, poop and pee to her heart's delight, and you can just remove the cover when you want to use the bed.  If there's a lot of wee on the cover, just launder and use the spare while it's in the wash.

Eventually, if you keep the cover on the bed, it may mask your scent enough that she'll lose interest, especially if you keep changing out the covers to ones that have been laundered and don't smell like her pee markings.

I wish there were an easier way, but this might at least be a temporary solution.

You can also watch her when she's on the bed, and give her a squirt with a water bottle when she hikes back to pee.  She will eventually get the message that unpleasant thing happens (squirt!) when she pees on the bed, but she will not necessarily associate it with you, since she probably won't realize that you're the one doing the squirting.

Hope that helps.

Dana