Behavior/health

Question
Hello Dr. Krempels,

I am hoping you can help with a behavior problem I have.  I have a male neutered bun who is about 3 years old named Rocky. (lionhead)  I also have a rescued non-altered female bun who is about 7 years old named Cole. (not sure of breed) Both are similar in size. They have been living together for about 2 and a half years now.  We very gently and carefully introduced them to each other, let them share territory in a new house together, but they have never shared a cage.  They seemed to fall in love very quickly! They snuggle, play, groom and seemed the best of friends.   We moved into a new apartment and again, let them get used to each other in their new shared territory.  Once again, their relationship was all love and play.

A little personality background: Cole is hyper and extremely energetic.  She is bratty and bossy sometimes (will bight on your toe if you ignore her) but is an unbelievable sweet girl. Loves attention, loves to be pet, held and cuddled. I noticed her personality swings alot throughout the month, I assumed because she is not spayed.

Rocky is a gentle, quiet sweet little guy.  Likes to be pet for short increments,  and liked to be cuddled a lot more when he was younger...more of a loner now that he is older.  When he "thinks" he is alone, he runs and jumps and is generally pretty happy and energetic.  But otherwise hides out unless there are treats involved, or he is super calm.

But 5 months later in April, I began to notice them fighting.  I caught them "bun wrestling" and they were so into it they would not respond to my commands.  Between the fur flying it was hard for me to tell who the aggressor was.  Sometimes it seemed like it was Cole, but then other times it seemed like it was Rocky.   We worked with them, letting them out separately for a whole month and then slowly we introduced them to each other again carefully and well supervised.  Suddenly, everything was fine again.  All summer long, love and play.

Tonight,  I let them out unsupervised as usual and 30 minutes later I walked into a fur storm...I didn't see them actually fighting but there were multiple tufts of hair all over the room.  This time one of the tufts had a bit of skin attached.  I plan on keeping the separated again and going through the same process as we did before.  

I am wondering if you have any insight into this?  What might the reason be?  Might they actually cause real physical harm to each other ?  Do you have any suggestions of what I should do different this time?

One P.S. on this... we are moving to a new house again on October 1st..  Our plan is that they will have their own play room again, and we will bring them into the living room/ bedroom with us for supervised visits as we always have.

I would greatly appreciate any insight you have..please let me know if I can clarify anything for you.  And I love your website, by the way...it was especially helpful to me when I first adopted Rocky.

THANK YOU!
-Julie-

Answer
Dear Julie,

I can't see them behaving, so this is just an educated guess.  But I suspect that the main problem is that Cole is not spayed.  Her sex drive might be pushing her to exhibit mounting behavior on Rocky, which he doesn't appreciate, and this will generate fights!

It's important not to let them get into a knock-down-drag-out fight, which can permanently break their bond.  Have Cole spayed ASAP, and make sure Rocky goes along for moral support:

www.bio.miami.edu/hare/spay.html

Find a good rabbit vet here:

www.rabbit.org/vets

Once Cole is healed up, she will begin to calm down.  It's also in her best interest to be spayed because of her very high risk of uterine cancer.  If they continue to fight, use the tips in the plentiful articles here:

http://search.atomz.com/search/?sp_a=sp06282400&sp_f=iso-8859-1&sp_q=bonding

I'm sure those will help get your household back to its former peace and happiness.

Good luck!

Dana