When to take bonding to the next level

It's been a while since I've been on here, I joined when we took on a rescue girl back in Oct 2010 and got some great tips and advice.

Anyway 18 months on, our girl Bob was finally spayed back last year and we spent ages looking for the right neutered hunbun for her. Back in Feb we finally found a rescue boy that would suit us perfectly so along came Baldrick.

We knew that Bob was probably going to be difficult with intros, she rules the roost and bosses the dogs around and is a very outspoken bun, we researched the best ways to introduce them and decided on neutral territory for the first meeting, so in they come to our hallway.

Bob hated him straight away and relentlessly chased him with lots of fur pulling, poor boy was terrified so we ended the first meeting there. We've now had two months of having them in dog crates next to each other for a few hours a day, first in the hallway and in the nicer weather out in the run. They are now fine out of the crate together in the house and in the run as long as we are with them but as soon as they are alone in the run she turns on him again.

Since we got him they have had alternate nights with one in the cage in the shed and the other in the hutch and run to get used to each other smells. We can let one loose in the run and the other in the crate unattended and they get on fine, even sleep next to each other with just the bars between them but as soon as we take the next step and let them both out in the hutch/run she bullies him.

Is it time we just bite the bullet and put them in the run together and let them sort it out themselves? I don't want things to go backwards but I'd also like them to be living together. Is two months long enough to get them used to each other? When do we call it a day and give up on them living together and just let them see each other through bars for company?

Hope you can all help

Hi!

I had very similar issues when bonding my pair. A lot of people will start to tell you enough is enough but I say hold on! My pair took 6 months of daily face to face contact to get them bonded. At the bottom of this post I will post a you tube clip of my pair now when they chase each other around the garden. I post this to show you that to a certain extent chasing is normal in bun relationships. When I first posted it on the RWAF fb page another owner questioned me about whether it was really healthy behaviour to which my answer is definitely yes. I odten wonder whether I intervened too quickly when I was bonding and whether that slowed the process down. Sometimes you have to just let them get on with it. However I say this with the warning that I had a £300+ vets bill after a bonding accident. So before you let them be together I strongly advise you to take out insurance. You can always cancel it once they are happy together.

Signs to look for -
Positive - grooming, eating, lying down together
Neutral - turning their back on the other bun, chasing, a bit bum biting and fur pulling,
Negative- lunging with ears flat back, proper biting by which I mean when they sort of roll together fighting.

It is worth asking at your local rescue to see if they have an experienced bonder who might take your buns and do the bonding for you. Failing that ask if you can borrow a friend/family/neighbour's house to bond. The complete change of environment should really help. Whilst they are elsewhere clean everything with a very weak solution of biological washing powder or liquid so the areas don't smell like they used to.

But ultimately just keep at it. My pair fought daily for all of the 6 months. Then one day something just changed and every day since their bond has strengthened. So don't loose hope.

Here is that video - not that both buns have their ears up almost all of the time signifying that there is no nasty intent in their activity. If Flo was bothered by Bruce chasing her like this she would turn around and bop him.

Just put them in an outside run together, we have spent from Christmas trying to rebond two of our buns after one of them had to go to the vet's for a blockage Op, when she had healed and we went to put them back together the boy just attacked her. We had tried when we had time, to rebond them without success and in the end we were so fed up with them being so miserable without each other we put them in a run in the garden and let them get on with it, they bonded again.
We did keep going to check they were both in one piece but it worked for us after 4 months of struggling.