Help Rabbit Won’t Stop Peeing On Bed

Emily Christensen · Aug 9, 2019

My rabbit (Holland lop) continuously pees on my bed. He’s 2 and a half and has been neutered for 2 years. In the past he would every once in a while but he randomly started acting up about a month ago and pees on my bed almost every time he’s out (every day)! My bed is their main play area because i live with my parents (im 19) and don’t always have the time to take them in the living room to run around and my mom won’t let them free roam. I try yelling at him, putting him back in the cage, ignoring him, everything!!! I just started trying to spray him with a water bottle because i heard that might work. Please give suggestions on what to do i hate having to wash my mattress pad every day and i can’t bear to keep him and my other bunny locked in their cage. PLEASE HELP!!!!
Side note- should i use the mist function on the direct stream spray function for the water bottle? I feel like the mist won’t do much especially because she just doesn’t care about much (like me yelling or pushing him back in the cage) he just doesn’t have a reaction. But with the direct spray im worried about hitting him in the eye. Thanks! (Sorry such a long worded post)

rabbitlover2019 · Aug 9, 2019

rabbits dose not understand punishments, so stop it.

Emily Christensen · Aug 9, 2019

rabbitlover2019 said:
rabbits dose not understand punishments, so stop it.

So then what should i do?

Watermelons · Aug 9, 2019

Stop letting them on the bed.

John Wick · Aug 9, 2019

It sounds like you are supervising whenever he is roaming in your bedroom (which is a good thing, for many reasons!). This is advantageous in stopping it, or at least reducing it significantly.

I agree with @rabbitlover2019 and @Watermelons , in that rabbits don't have it built in mentally to understand what seems like simple training techniques and that forbidding him from the bed is the most straight-forward method. It is very uncommon for a rabbit to be able to resist peeing on a bed— it's soft, cozy, and has nice crevices where they feel safe peeing into.

Restricting bed access doesn't involve yelling or aggressive swooping behaviors. It can be as simple as, when he jumps on the bed, giving him nudges to jump off, and doing this consistently, no matter how many consecutive times he jumps right back up in order to get the point across. Rabbits have really good hearing and take in a lot of sensory information, and I find loud noises coming from yelling at them and such is more harmful for their learning, so just do a small sound when he hops of the bed, that will act as a signal of "I'm about to come nudge you off the bed.". For my rabbit, a short snake "hiss" sound is effective. It's loud, short, and doesn't sound like any other sound I'd ordinarily make, so it has worked well as a general "I disapprove" signal for him.

Also, I know it's really frustrating, but try to keep in mind your rabbit has no idea what he is doing wrong, and will probably never understand why he's not allowed on your bed/to pee on it. That's their mental capabilities, so while it's hard not to get frustrated at that, it's something many rabbits aren't going to be able to fundamentally learn, so it's a behavior we as owners need to try to prevent by guiding them.