Difficult rabbit bonding

Question
I have a pair of rabbits I am trying to bond. I have done this a few times before and it was simple enough but I am stummped this time. I have a two yr old female named siete and her partner just died over 8 months ago. Three months ago I brought home a one yr old lion head named Chewy. At first I put them in a pen to run together in the garage and this went well but Siete really didnt like Chewy and he was scared to death of everything that moved. I put them together for over two months for one or two one our session a day together and would still see mostly aggressive behavior from Siete. They would go from grooming to circling and fighting in a circle in a moments notice. I then tried other rooms in the house and it was about the same behaviors. I then tried car rides before the sessions and this was ok with helping them bond they would groom more but still a fight would happen at a moments notice just less often. So now I am at a point three months later I am still doing the one hour session in the garage. They are eating now and grooming but I cannot leave them at any time or they will fight. No car rides this week and it seems to be better. SO I tried bring them inside with a pen and a fight happend almost 5 min into the session. A rabbit advisor at a store around here suggested that I am not the top bunnie to them and that they are not listening to me so I have been working on this. Chewy now is the one though that is showing aggressive behavior towards Siete. He is all of a sudden a bossy rabbit with her and with me. He has always thumped at just about anything that moved though. Any advice you can give on this difficult bonding would be great! I keep thinking that they are just on the verg but it has been on the verg for way too long!

Answer
Hi Christa

It seems as though you are in a tough situation.  Honestly there comes a time that you just might have to give up.  It is clear that you have done absolutely everything that anyone who trains rabbits would do.  The only thing I can think of is that Siete lost her mate.  Occasionally you will have a rabbit that loses its mate and they will never re-bond with anything.  It is almost like a love sick person who is just sooooo sad.

I am giving you the address to my friend Connie's web-site.  She has a rabbit named Harley who lost her mate and has successfully re-bonded a few times.  Her e-mail address is on the site and she is an awesome lady and can answer everything you need to know about love sick bunnies.  She is really prompt with her e-mails also.

http://www.hopperhome.com/

I am assuming that both rabbits are fixed or you obviously wouldn't try to bond them.  With all the other information you have it is clear that you know what you are doing.  I am not so sure about being top bunny.  I always let my rabbits think they are top bunny because it makes them happy.  My rabbits all think they are the boss of me and I just figure what they don't know won't hurt them.

One other thing you can do to get them to realize where you fit into their lives is to actually get down on their level.   Watch their body language and do things to induce grooming behavior like rubbing your face.  This site explains all of that:

http://www.muridae.com/rabbits/rabbittalk.html

Since you have tried all of the usual tricks with limited success you may have to come to a realization that it just isn't going to work.  There are some rabbits who will literally take years of bonding sessions before they get along perfectly.  It is really up to you how much time you want to spend.  You will also know when it is time to give up.

One last thing I forgot to mention, have you tried spraying them in the face with a water bottle when they look like they are about to fight?  If you haven't tried this you might want to try this also.

I am sorry that your bunnies are not cooperating.  I hope that things get better.  Just remember that there is nothing wrong with putting up a baby gate and having one rabbit in one end of the house and another in the other end.

Good luck

Pam