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Although I've heard that some house rabbits can't be litter trained, it was surprisingly
easy to get the
Bunster
to use a litter pan.
Like most rabbit owners, we started him out in a
cage.
He spent most of his time in it -- whenever we left the apartment (we both work, so this was
often) and when we we went to bed, he'd be shut up in his cage. We'd let him out when we
were home.
His cage had food, water, and a tray beneath it to catch his
droppings (the floor of the cage was wire). He pretty much picked one corner of the
cage to use as his toliet (typical bunny behavior), and that was the key to his
litter training.
When we moved from the east coast to the west, we realized that his
cage was really too big to take with us comfortably on the plane, even as luggage. The
alternative was to let the movers take it, but it would have remained in storage with the
rest of our stuff until we found a place to live. That could have been weeks or months.
On His Honor
By that point, we'd had him for over a year, and we were only shutting
him in his cage at night (which he had grown to hate, judging by the struggle we had at
bedtime). He had run of the apartment during the day, even when we were gone. He was a
free-range rabbit
and on his honor not to wreak havoc while we were out. During the day, he would hop into his
cage whenever he needed to eat or drink or use his toliet corner, so he really wasn't living
in his cage. I'd heard that some rabbits can be litter trained, so we decided we'd try it,
and if it worked, we'd let the movers take his cage.
We bought a cat litter pan, put wood shavings in it, and placed it in his toliet corner in
his cage. Ever the Curious George, our Wascally Wabitt hopped in and out of it several times,
tried to eat the wood shavings, and chewed on the plastic sides. But the next time he had to
go, he didn't hesitate to hop in and use it. And he used it consistently for the next
few days.
If We'd Been Smart
We really didn't leave ourselves much time to train him -- the
movers came later that week and packed up our place. Because we were planning to fly out the
next day, so we spent the night in a hotel. We brought along his litter pan, along with some
fresh droppings to put in it. If we'd been smart, we would have had him use his litter pan
outside his cage before the movers had taken it away. But we didn't. Would he know to use
the litter pan if his cage wasn't there?
As soon as we got in the hotel, we set up his litter pan in a corner
of the room and sprinkled the droppings into it. I took him out of his carrier and put him
immediately into his litter pan. Holding him in the pan for a few minutes (his first instinct
was to jump out and hide -- he had been traumatized by the car ride to the hotel), I stroked
him and tried to calm him. When he started to breathe a bit easier, I showed him his
droppings, then let him leave the pan.
Success!
He immediately dove under the bed and spent most of the night there. The next morning
we discovered that he had come back to his litter pan at some point,
because there were new droppings. And as we got ready to go to the airport, we saw him
jump into the litter pan and use it. Success!
After that, we did away with his cage altogether. Whenever we
moved, all we had to do was show him where we were putting his litter pan, and he would
use it without problem. It's also been a place of comfort and safety for him. He'll
sometimes hang out in his litter pan for a while, bunched up, ears slicked back, and dozing.
And whenever our bad bunny
gets into mischief, such as pulling down books from the bookcase and chewing them, he
usually runs to his litter pan to avoid a scolding.
Another Favorite Munchie
I don't know if it's true of all house rabbits, but ours likes to
back up into a corner to go. So we needed to get a litter pan with high sides to prevent
him from splashing outside his pan. From time to time, he leaves a dropping or two in a
place outside of his litter pan, usually in an area he likes to frequent, as a way to mark it.
(Healthy rabbit droppings are small, hard, and round -- about as non-messy as you can get.)
He's also left droppings outside of his litter pan to show us that he was ill. His droppings
were misformed and had an off-color. When we took him to the vet, we learned that
the bunny food
we were feeding him was leading to digestive problems that could kill him. Fortunately, he
recovered once we started feeding him better.
In his litter pan, we avoided using cat litter, because he liked to
eat it. He also liked snacking on fresh cedar shavings, although we almost immediate
switched him to corn cob litter (another favorite munchie of his) when we learned that cedar
shavings have aromatic oils that can be harmful to a small critter's health. Later, we
started using recycled wood pulp pet bedding as litter. Each time we switched types of
litter, we got him used to the new stuff gradually, by mixing the new kind of litter with
the old.
The House Rabbit Society's Web
site also has advice on litter training your house rabbit. Good luck! Let me
know what kind of success you have with your bunny.
"How We Litter Trained Our Rabbit" copyright 1998-2000 Kim Fryer. All rights reserved.
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