Lagomorphine
Warren Scout
I was wondering if anybody has seen this and has an idea of what is going on.
Our two rabbits, Willow and Charlie have been living side by side for about two months now. My initial attempts at bonding did not go well, they always ended up fighting with Willow requiring some veterinary attention after the last attempt, and after that incident I decided to give the whole thing a rest. So they've been living parallel lives for a while now ("like the hostages in The OA", as one of my colleagues put it...).
But I haven't given up, so recently I started letting them out together with very close supervision. (I have a soft plastic broom with very fine bristles and whenever they look confrontational I stick the brush in between them. It seems to work. My wife says it looks like I'm playing croquet.)
In the last few days I had to intervene less and less and there doesn't seem to be too much aggression between Willow and Charlie. They have however developed a weird habit. They graze quite happily side by side for a few minutes, then suddenly they both turn towards each other and sort of bury their heads in the other's fur. They lie on the grass, completely motionless, hear-to-head, almost perfectly symmetrical, with each of them sliding his/her head sideways under the other's body up to the front legs. There is no movement, no action, no licking, in fact they seem almost mesmerized. The only thing I can see (and I'm not too sure about this either) is that both of them seem to be panting. Their bodies don't seem tense, in fact Willow tends to kick her legs behind her. The whole thing lasts about a minute or so, then one of them breaks the magic and they separate. There is no sign of aggression, biting, fur pulling but there is no affection either.
I'm not quite what to make of this - is this perhaps some kind of "lick me", "no, you lick me", "no, you lick me" stalemate that resolves itself?
Our two rabbits, Willow and Charlie have been living side by side for about two months now. My initial attempts at bonding did not go well, they always ended up fighting with Willow requiring some veterinary attention after the last attempt, and after that incident I decided to give the whole thing a rest. So they've been living parallel lives for a while now ("like the hostages in The OA", as one of my colleagues put it...).
But I haven't given up, so recently I started letting them out together with very close supervision. (I have a soft plastic broom with very fine bristles and whenever they look confrontational I stick the brush in between them. It seems to work. My wife says it looks like I'm playing croquet.)
In the last few days I had to intervene less and less and there doesn't seem to be too much aggression between Willow and Charlie. They have however developed a weird habit. They graze quite happily side by side for a few minutes, then suddenly they both turn towards each other and sort of bury their heads in the other's fur. They lie on the grass, completely motionless, hear-to-head, almost perfectly symmetrical, with each of them sliding his/her head sideways under the other's body up to the front legs. There is no movement, no action, no licking, in fact they seem almost mesmerized. The only thing I can see (and I'm not too sure about this either) is that both of them seem to be panting. Their bodies don't seem tense, in fact Willow tends to kick her legs behind her. The whole thing lasts about a minute or so, then one of them breaks the magic and they separate. There is no sign of aggression, biting, fur pulling but there is no affection either.
I'm not quite what to make of this - is this perhaps some kind of "lick me", "no, you lick me", "no, you lick me" stalemate that resolves itself?
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But it definitely sounds like something ours did, so I wouldn't worry about it!
