Everyone, Meet Phineas

August 25, 2013

We’re happy to announce our newest family member: Phineas. We met him when we were at Red Door Animal Shelter, on the lookout for a new friend for Quincy. When we met Phineas (originally called “Cowboy”), Liz and I both fell for him right away – he was curious, inquisitive, and not shy at all about hopping in your lap for some pets/attention.

A subsequent speed-dating session showed that Quincy got along with him fairly well, to boot. So we brought Phineas home with us, and began the process of bonding the two rabbits over the weekend.

It’s always a tricky thing, bonding rabbits. You want to ensure they meet on a neutral space, so Liz set up some blankets in the hallway by the front door. While there was a bit of a rough start (Phineas nipping at Quincy’s feet, and an unfortunate round or two of peeing/spraying by Phineas), things went as well as could be expected.

Another bonding session, with the space markedly closer. This gave the rabbits less room to run around, and forced them to be around each other a bit more.

Quincy, stubborn old man rabbit that he is, kept shoving his face down into Phineas, expecting to be groomed. So far, Quincy’s been grooming Phineas more, and not really getting much back in terms of reciprocation. Still trying to suss out who’s the alpha in the pair.

Over the weekend, we moved into the hallway by the bedroom/bathroom. It was a little quieter here, given the noise from outside, and we could adjust the size/space as needed by just blocking off one exit point.

Quincy and Phineas, hanging out.

We’ve been doing things like switching their litter boxes at night, while they’ve been living in separate areas. For the most part, things have been really relaxed with Phineas, save for one instance… where we somehow freaked him out. He seems to get really attentive/timid whenever he hears noises in the kitchen – but then instantly relaxes whenever the noises stop.

One day, as I was adding hay to the litter boxes, I think I spooked him with the bag… and Phineas ended up running around his pen a fast as possible. He got to doing circles, and began running against the pen itself – almost parallel to the ground. You know those motorcyclists that ride inside a metal sphere and defy gravity? That was what it looked like.

But beyond that one freakout, Phineas has been pretty great. After an incredibly long bonding session on Saturday (with them spending 7+ hours together), we decided to pull the trigger and place them in the same room permanently. And it’s been great so far, ever since.

It’s remarkable to both me and Liz that these two have become bonded so quickly, and have gotten used to one another so quickly. With Baxter, it took us over 3 months of constant bonding sessions to try to get them to be civil to one another. But with Phineas, it’s been a breeze – and now hopefully both rabbits are happy.

I love this photo that Liz took so much, I’m posting it up again. Welcome, Phineas! It’s great to have you here…

To see Liz’s recap, swing on over to her blog.