rabbit acting withdrawn

Question
Dr. Mr. Meyer,

We just adopted a 8 mo. rabbit. We originally kept her in her cage in the living room/dining room area. Her previous owner said she is litter-boxed trained and used to let her out of her cage regularly, but upon moving into our house she was pooping and peeing around the perimeter of this big living room/dining room area.

After reading around the Internet about litter-box training, I gathered that I may have to retrain her now to use the litter box, now that she is in new surroundings. The advice was to confine her to one room at first, with lots of litter boxes placed around it, until she gets in the habit of going in the litter box and learns her territory is her cage.

So I moved her cage into the kitchen as it has a door that can be shut when she is out of the cage. The problem is that she refuses to come out of her cage now that it is in the kitchen. I have left the door open for hours at a time and she won't come out even when tempted by canteloupe and other treats.

I feel so sad that she won't come out and socialize and run around with us, but also want to have her house trained before I let her run around the house.

What is your advice?

Yours sincerely,

Julie

Answer
Hi Julie,

moving the rabbit was the big deal for her.  You've removed her from her territory.  She doesn't know why and the new area obviously scares her.

You do not mention if she has been spayed or not.  that makes a huge difference.  If she is not spayed you will have a lot more markings than if she is spayed.  

Further, what she was doing marking the perimiter was marking her territory.  All rabbits do this whether spayed or not.  They will drop pellets outside of their litterpan.  You just have to pick them up.  Also by putting a pan in the spot they always seem to want to refresh, you catch most of it in a litterpan.  But they will drop pellets periodically and it's just something that they do.  It will lessen being spayed.

So, if she isn't spayed, you need to get her spayed.  By a GOOD rabbit vet.  To find a good rabbit vet where you are go here:

www.rabbit.org/vets/vets.html

and find a House Rabbit Society recommended vet near you.

And I would put her back in the room she was used to for now, just the way you had her before.  You need to have her build up trust in you again.  Further, if she is like some of my rabbits, they are scared by a lot of smells that come from the various foods you work on and cook in the kitchen, particularly meats.  Please consider putting her back in the living room.  Get some pet exercise gates that are at least 30 inches high, and use them to keep her in the living room/dining room area.  Find the areas that she marks all the time, and put the pan there.  I have found that they will generally gravitate towards the litterbox.

Rabbits are prey animals.  They are strong creatures of habit and like a pretty much fixed routine.  This is why it is a shock to her to be in the kitchen.  As prey animals they take a lot longer to trust people.  Because trust is what keeps them alive.  

And you don't HAVE to give her run of the whole house, all the time, or at all.  None of my guys has free reign.  I move too much stuff around, and some of my guys like to get under and between my feet, and are very quiet, and I can't be on guard like that ALL the time.  You can find something that works for you and your situation.  It also, in my opinion, helps you to be able to find them quicker and get them in a carrier if something happens and you need to get them out of the house.  They won't be hiding somewhere you have no idea.

But the key to having all this work well inside the house is having her spayed by a good rabbit vet.  THe excessive marking is hormonally driven, and it will go down as the hormone levels go down.  It won't eliminate it, but it will reduce it, and they will be able to associate their cage litterpan with the litterpan placed out in the spot they mark frequently.

So don't be angry at her for marking.  This is normal behavior.  She is not acting out, she is not being naughty.  She's doing what a rabbit does.  And if she is not spayed, it is essentially hormonally driven behavior.  Moving her to the kitchen is being regarded as punishment and she has no idea why.  The smells and sounds of the kitchen probably are not helping.

Lee