Friday, August 29, 2008

behavior problems

My poor Joelle... I think that something is wrong with her, but since she is a rabbit she cannot tell me what the issue is. Thus I must conduct some detective work and attempt to interpret her clues.
me? have behavior problems?
Her behavior has changed since we moved to State College, and that is what has me concerned. The major concern is her use (or lack thereof) of the litter box. In my place in Pittsburgh Joelle had a box in her "house" and another one in the bathroom. She preferred the one in the bathroom, and often when I would come home and let her out of the house she would dash straight away into the bathroom. When I moved to State College I set up a box in the bathroom and showed it to her and even laid out carpet leading up to the box so she would not have to put her furry paws on the slippery tile. However, she has yet to use that box. In addition, not too long after I moved (within a month) she started using other parts of her house instead of her box as the place to pee. This is the most troubling part - and the most annoying. After a couple incidents that first month she's been pretty good, but in the past month she's been pretty consistently leaving spots in the corners that are not where her litter box is. I don't quite know what to do. One day this week I got exasperated and shoved the bathroom box into the house, also...leaving pretty much no room to do much of anything except sit in a litter box. That stopped the peeing-not-in-the-box thing. For about two days. Now it's back and apparently is spreading to any corner she wants.

The peeing is concerning enough, but also in the past week I have caught her chewing up the fabric on my footstool (Curses!!! That's a discontinued slipcover color, naughty rabbit!!) and digging at the carpet near the glass slider (trying to get outside???). She's just been acting WEIRD!

Several possibilities come to my mind:
  • The apartment is smaller than the one in Pittsburgh, so maybe she feels cramped
  • I am not home as much as I was in Pittsburgh, so maybe she is lonely and bored
  • Her hair is a big huge matted mess, so maybe she is feeling miserable about being unkempt
  • Moving probably stressed her out a lot, and maybe that and all the other things have just put her over the edge
Now...what do to about any of those things?
  • I could add on to her house and/or rearrange the furniture to make it seem more roomy (or move to a bigger place...haha, not really)
  • I could get another rabbit, although that would make it even MORE cramped!
  • I could terrorize her by cutting off all of her hair so she's clean again, or I could even pay a lot to have the vet do it while Jo is sedated (this seems like a very tempting option...although the since rabbits are tricky the anesthesia scares me and I feel kind of like it's a cop-out and that I'm a bad mom who can't brush her own kid's hair and that it costs a lot)
  • I could do yoga with her...? Or see if there's bunny Prozac. Or maybe at least do some cuddle sessions, although she doesn't really like cuddling
I suppose I'll try the easier ones first and see what happens. Any thoughts?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

So I'm not a bunny expert by any means, but I don't think shaving her is the ultimate option. When Jake was peeing outside of his box, it turned out that he had crystals forming in his urine that were causing pain, which he associated with the litter box. All of this led to a number of UTIs. Not pleasant for Jake or his mom. Once we fixed the crystals, we fixed the peeing problem. I don't know if bunnies can get crystals, but I think you should at least take her to a bunny vet and see what they think. Maybe she does need a good anesthesia shave. I don't think getting another bunny is a good idea just yet.

Well, that's just my two cents. Call me if you want to go on a super long bike ride this weekend!

Anonymous said...

I was thinking the same thing as Anna. That's what Petunia did when she had constant bladder infections. Drove me crazy, but some antibiotics took care of it.

Rabbits probably aren't anything like cats, but I know my cats do things to get attention when they are upset. When we moved Peyton practically had a nervous breakdown and pottied all over himself and hid under the couch for two weeks. I had to carry him around the apartment to show him it was OK and give him lots of extra love. He's an especially needy kitty though. But maybe Joelle is just telling you she doesn't like that she had to move and that you're never home anymore and she's bored. Does she play with stuff? Maybe some new interactive toys would help. Or maybe "scheduling" bunny time in the morning would sooth her before you left for the day.

Animals are so different and challenging, but that's why we love them ; ) It'd be no fun if they were happy every minute of every day and never showed dissatisfaction! That's when you really get to learn their personalities.

Good luck!! : )