|
by Gretchen
Kunze-Fahrney
I
am so, so happy to say that it is finally over, after eight long
months. The story goes like this: My husband and I work 40 hours
a week, so we decided to find a friend for our rabbit, Hop Along
Cassidy (Cassidy). I contacted several rescues and Zooh Corner was
the first to return my call. We talked about Cassidy and possible
rabbit friends, and I made an appointment for our first "bunny
date".
The
first bunny we tried was Charmer, a little white mini lop who had
survived three days alone in a cage with a boa constrictor, but
she was a little too aggressive in her attempts to get affection.
She scared Cassidy, so we decided to try another bun and see if
that went better. Alex suggested Peter, a fairly new arrival at
the Zooh, but right before they were to meet, Peter had a heart
attack (upon necropsy it was discovered that Peter had an extremely
weak heart wall)! We waited a bit longer and one day Alex called
me and asked me, "How about two rabbits?" She had a bonded
pair of fuzzy lops, a mother and daughter, who were at a foster
home. I said sure, but I had to talk my husband into two, and when
he finally said okay we brought Cassidy to Zooh Corner for a weekend
date.
The
date went so good (The bunnies never even tussled! They just
immediately got along like long-lost buddies, cuddled and groomed
for the entire weekend... - Ed.) that on Monday night Alex brought
the three bunnies back to our house. Cassidy...Mischief and Shadow.
The at-home dating was going good, until one night a fight broke
out between Cassidy and Shadow and we had to take poor Shadow to
the emergency room to have her ears stitched up. We were too nervous
to continue the sessions right away, so things were put on hold
until the stitches came out.
Dating
resumed in an extra bedroom and occurred only a couple of times
a week. I would spend the date time sitting in the same area with
them, so that I could be there in case a fight broke out and also
so they could get used to me and I could learn about their personalities.
I learned that Shadow was the shy one, although she is also curious.
She was once found trying to exercise on the Orbitrek (exercise
bike) and another time teetering on the top of the two joined x-pens
(she has great balance). She would come up to me and bump me with
her head, and she was Mischief's little "shadow". Mischief
didn't get her name changed from Mommy for a month and a half. She
is the most mischievous of the three. She gets into everything and
anywhere. She has even been found in the trash can! She is the leader
of the gang. And of course Cassidy, our baby, is the lover. He loves
to give kisses (to us) and is very submissive to the two girls.
Everytime they fly by he puts his head down in hopes of a licking.
Cassidy likes being up high. He can always be found lying on top
of his cage or on the back of the couch. Things were going fine
for a couple of weeks and then the rabbits started excessive marking
of territory, so the bonding sessions were switched to the bathroom.
After about a half hour in the bathtub they would all lie down.
I then decided there wasn't enough room and not as much interaction,
so I moved the dates to the kitchen. Things were going well, until
about a month later when we rescued and fostered some feral kittens,
who stayed in our bathroom (adjacent to the bunny room) and that
affected the bunny dates.
Little
fights began to occur and fur would fly, so we decided to end the
dates until the kittens were adopted out and then start again with
a clean slate. That put us into August. It had already been approximately
six months, so I knew I had to come up with a solution. Alex had
said it many times: needed to be more consistent. So I started back
up in the kitchen doing long "dates" every night. And
when things were going good there, I moved them down into the bunny
room (family room) in an extra X-pen, in the middle of their common
area. I knew I needed to really dedicate myself to this bonding
process and I made sure that they were in there every day for one
to five hours. Even if I got home from art class at 10pm I sat down
there for at least one hour. I did sessions at night and I sometimes
came home at lunch and did sessions as well. After a couple of weeks
I rearranged the bonding area so that it was sharing a common wall
of the x-pen, their regular enclosure. When that was going fine,
I opened up their regular x-pen areas into the extra x-pen area,
so they could wander through each other's cages as well as the bonding
x-pen.
My only problem by this point was that Cassidy was still not used
to this long hair that Mischief and Shadow have. He would groom
their only short hair area, which happened to be around their eyes.
This was very nerve wracking to my husband and me and we worried
that Cassidy might injure them. They would jump back and sometimes
box at him. Alex kept telling me that either Cassidy would learn
to be gentler, or that they would learn to tolerate him, but that
they needed to settle this part themselves, that it would just take
time...and eventually, the fighting-due-to-bad-grooming ceased and
things were good - so I took the final step.
One
Saturday morning, I put the three bunnies in the extra X-pen, while
I thoroughly cleaned their cages and put them in a new arrangement
that made the two individual x-pens into one big one. I then let
them back into their newly combined area and I stayed in the room
the rest of the day. They wandered around and checked out their
new digs. They were fine the whole day, but just to be sure, my
husband and I slept in the room with them to make sure everything
went okay during the night. Morning came and everyone was just fine
and I am so happy to say, that after eight long months, I have helped
pave the way for this happy trio of bunny friends.
Lessons Learned
If things are going really badly, taking a break to calm down and
regroup can be good. Take things slow, at the bunny's pace and as
things progress, change the location of dates to get closer to non-neutral
territory. Most of all BE CONSISTENT! Consistency is the most important
part of a successful bonding experience. This is of course aside
from having two spayed or neutered rabbits to start with. Good luck
on your bonding experience and ask Zooh Corner for suggestions if
things aren't going well.
Ed.
- Gretchen is a very dedicated and often over-worked Zooh Corner
volunteer. We hope she will write many more articles for us in the
future.
|
