shes peeing on furniture

Question
Fuzz, our netherland dwarf of about 4 months old (the pet store was not sure how old she was) has been peeing on our bed since we got her, but otherwise she was completely litter trained. We give her her own space in a very large cage we made for her and she pees in her litter box and poos only in her cage for marking it as hers. The only mistakes she makes have been the bed, and she has recently begun peeing on our couch and my boyfriend's bed (even though there are other litterboxes for her). We have tried yelling at her, clapping loudly, putting her in her cage for a time out, pushing her head gently but firmly to the ground to let her know that we are in fact the dominant species (as suggested in a bunny book we purchased), and nothing seems to work. I have even tried 'insulting' her, following directions on the internet, and this did not stop the peeing, it only made her mad. We have also read that using a paint dropsheet is a  good idea because apparently bunnies don't like the feel/sound of it, however we have been painting our house gradually and unfortunately the dropsheets in the livingroom are her favourite play toys. I've read that to be safe you should not spay your bunny until they are about 6 months old, but my boyfriend is really against spaying her because  she cannot give consent and disagrees with taking body parts out of her. The really weird thing about when she pees on the couch is that we've tried leaving her in the living room for a period of 3 hours (with food,water, and litter), and if we're out of the house she does not pee on the furniture. But if we are in the room, or sitting on the couch especially, she does it consistently. We assume its a dominance issue, but that doesn't help us to teach her to stop peeing on innappropriate things. I've done hours of research on the internet about this issue and NOTHING seems to work. PLEASE HELP!!! Thank you for your time in advance :)  

Answer
Hi Brittany,

two suggestions.  First, place large rectangular cat litterpans in the exact spot she pees on.  It's not a bathroom thing, it's a marking thing, so litterpans in other places in the room don't address this problem.  She may possibly do her marking in a litterpan over where she normally pees.

The second suggestion is getting her spayed.  Apart from your boyfriend's feelings, the fact is that spaying females reduces this behavior, as it is largely hormonally driven.  The hormones increase her tendencies to want to mark.  She is probably marking because she smells your (Brittany) pheromones and wants to 'overmark' your scents.  Yes, rabbits can trigger off pheromones of people.

Basically spaying will get you your pre-sexual maturity bunny back.  It will also most likely prevent her from dying a premature and painful death from uterine cancer.  Most unspayed (about 80-85%) of unspayed female rabbits die by age 5 or so from uterine cancer.  I'd think that if she could understand what you were telling her, she'd probably give you consent if it would allow her to live to 11 or 12, instead of dying unnecessarily premature.  Something to think about.

Just get a very good rabbit vet to do the procedure.  IF you need to find one, go to:  

www.rabbit.org/care/vets.html

to find a House Rabbit Society-recommended vet in your area.

Lee


PS - Hi Brittany, thanks for your reply.  Just realize that getting her spayed is a 'quality of life' issue, not just for curbing so-called negative behaviors, but for her as well.  As a general rule, most vets advise spaying or neutering if you are not going to breed.  Any rabbit vet worth their salt also knows that most female rabbits will get cancer and die young if unspayed.  If you're not breeding her you're basically consigning her to an early, not very pleasant death, given the stats.  Whereas she could have a life of 11-12 years easily, and good quality life if she is well taken care of.  I think she'd appreciate a few days of recuperation for 5-6 extra years.