Pet Lop will not house train.

Question
Years ago my wife and I bought a Holland Lop from a mall pet store. He was easily house trained to go on, essentially, a litter box with a grate on the top. He was a wonderful pet, particularly after we had him neutered, and lived a little over 5 years.

Now after some time, we thought, "Okay, our kids are old enough..." so we bought another Holland Lop, this time a female. She is very nice, but doesn't seem to "get it" in the same way our first Lop did.

What we are doing is mopping up her urine and putting it where we would prefer she go. This worked well with the first rabbit, but doesn't seem to be triggering a response in her. She goes where she wants to. So we tried setting up a "station" where she goes, but then she goes somewhere else. In fact, she doesn't even pick a spot she prefers and sticks with it. She sort of goes anywhere. As a result we keep her in her cage alot, which isn't a happy thing for any of us, especially her.

We are very open to any guidance you might offer. She is about 6 mos. old, not spayed, might not be pure bred Lop (pinkish eyes in the right light)if that matters at all, and is very territorial about hands going into her cage(stomps, growls, bumps hard with her nose but does not bite). She hops right out when the door is opened, but does not like to be picked up at all. Otherwise she is reasonably affectionate, but in all this is very different from our first Lop, who was easily house trained and a great indoor pet.

Again, anything you can tell us that will help us get on this creature's wavelength is much appreciated.

Chris Burke

Answer
Well, the first thing I would suggest is having her spayed, a hormonal rabbit (which it sounds like she is) will have very bad litter habits.

There are a lot of tips here - http://www.rabbit.org/faq/sections/litter.html

Another tip might be to put her hay in the litterbox, so she can eat and poop at the same time.

However, getting her spayed will help a lot, otherwise she is going to continue to go whereever she wants to let the other bunny know that she's here (bunnies mark territory).

Kim