bunny urinating on me

Question
Dear Dana,

I have a 1 year old rabbit and I have adopted him 2 months ago. he is litter trained and is neutered for more than one month. usually i would let him run around the house under my supservision and he would hop and sit next to me on the sofa. However for the past 2 days he came up to me on the sofa and he would sit right next to me closely and urinates. i scolded him and chased him and scared him with newspaper but i am not sure whether that works. i understand that that might mean 'marking me as his territory' but i am not sure whether that has to do with me taking him to the vet 3 days ago. the last time he urinated next to me was about 1 month ago after i gave him a nail trim. is he angry at me or is there something else in his mind? Please help.

Thanks a lot
Lily

Answer
Dear Lily,

His urination is probably a combination of marking you *and* showing you that "he's the boss."  The fact that he did this after you did something to him he didn't like may just show that he was, indeed, being a little bit vindictive, but not in a mean way.  He was establishing his dominance with a nice, warm stream of pee--not weeing on you because he thought it would make you angry.

He sounds like a very smart, if willful, bunny!  :)

For more tips on how to stop this type of behavior (which might not be easy), you might wish to write to the behavior expert folks at behavior@rabbit.org

I'm sure they'll be able to offer more suggestions.

Hope this helps!

Dana