Bonding Support Services

Understanding Bonding from the Rabbit’s Perspective is Your Key To Success!

Finding a perfect companion for your rabbit is often thought to be a tricky experience.

In our experience though, it is often as much about a safe bonding process as anything else!

When bonding goes wrong it is usually down to one of two factors:

  • The owner intervening at the wrong time or in the wrong way.
  • The personalities of the rabbits are mismatched.

Some rescues offer “bunny speed dating”. This is when your rabbit is put in a pen with another rabbit. This allows your rabbit to choose his/her most favoured friend. However we find the circumstances of these dates often hide the "real" reaction which may happen when the "perfect pair" return home, and that in 9 out of 10 bonding experiences the bonding "fight", which often appears to be more violent than it is in reality, will still happen.

Of course, some rabbits will naturally hit it off better than others.

Choosing the opposite sex for bonding is advised as male-female bonds are a lot easier than same-sex bonds.

How Can We Help? Our Bonding Support Service Options

We have a number of bonding support services designed to help you make a success of bonding your rabbits. You do not need to have adopted your rabbits from us, as these services are available to all rabbit owners.

Rabbit Bonding Support Consultations

 

We can offer Bonding Support Consultation services face-to-face in our offices in Kirkintilloch (G66 1QH).

Our Bonding Support Consultation invites you to bring your rabbits to our offices, and our experienced volunteers will provide you training and advice on our preferred Bonding Support techniques, giving you the confidence to continue the bonding activities at home yourself. As well as the initial face-to-face session, we are happy to continue to provide support to you by email, social media or telephone too.

For most people, our Bonding Support Consultations will give you everything you need to progress bonding activity in your own home.

Bonding Bootcamp

Our popular Bonding Bootcamp services offers an effective alternative for those struggling to get the bond to work at home.

Whether its a difficult bond, you're struggling for the time needed, or you don't have the neutral space to make it work, we can help.

Your rabbits will board with us for 7 - 14 days, and whilst in our care we will conduct the bonding activity for you.

Our dedicated bonding facilities at The Hoppy Hub in Kirkintilloch are designed to focus the rabbits' attention on each other without distraction from their own territory and belongings.

Our insulated and heated equipment ensures we can keep both indoor and outdoor rabbits comfortable during their stay.

Our trained team conduct daily bonding exercises that support the introduction of the rabbits over a period of days, minimising the risk and stress associated with rapid techniques.

When the rabbits return home, they will be in a settled bond that will allow them to comfortably and safely live together in the same environment.  However, it is still an early stage bond, as it can take several weeks for the rabbits to gel together into full companionship and so our team will offer you lots of advice on how to support your rabbits' bond further as settle in back home.

What If It Just Doesn’t Work?

Unfortunately, we can't always get our rabbits to bond no matter how hard we try, and we do need to accept that some personalities are just simply not compatible.

We will help you do whatever we can to make the bond a success.

But if it doesn’t work, we understand that keeping rabbits lonely is not what anyone wants.

We will discuss numerous options with you if the bond is unsuccessful to find the right solution that works for you, and most importantly is right for the welfare of your rabbit.