Before we brought Sydney home, we set up what was to become 'her space' (i.e. our living room). The crate, food dishes and potty area (she is being paper trained due to us living on the 5
th floor of a walk up building in
nyc) were set up at least a week before as well as a gate which divides the living room and dining room/kitchen where Butters resides. We hoped this would help Butters get used to not having access to the living room, but also the new sites and objects that would become the puppy stuff.
For the first week after we brought Sydney home (she was just 8 weeks old) it was mainly spent on focusing on her - getting her settled, accustomed to us, on a scheduled and starting basic training. After a week she is pretty reliable (95%) with her paper training (she must go on a space the size of an open newspaper, so its not too big). She is doing really good with "sit" especially if there is a treat involved! We also made sure to continue giving Butters his regular treats and attention and even working on petting him after handling the puppy to get him accustomed to the smells of the new puppy.
While we do have the puppy and rabbit in separate rooms and we usually keep the door closed, throughout the first 2 weeks we have occasionally left the door open with a small gate in place. Sydney is still learning to sit quietly in front of the gate (like when we leave the room), and she has definitely noticed the presence of Butters as he has free roam of the dining room. We kept these visual encounters short - Butters has seemed fairly carefree about the puppy - walking around, eating, stretching, sitting on his "pillow" for treats. It was also important for Butters to hear and see how Sydney acts.
Sydney is very curious about Butters - She seems to think he'll be a great playmate. Since Sydney has learned "Sit" I try to keep her in a sit while she is watching Butters and although she is interested, she is not fixated.
Last night was actually a big night - in my opinion - yet it was not a planned "date" or meeting. Ricky had left the living room and I was playing with Sydney on the floor. We left the door open, but the gate up in place. Ricky gave a treat to Butters (who is trained to sit on his pillow for a treat) which put Butters less than a foot away from Sydney. She remained fairly calm, but definitely intrigued. I gave her treats and asked her to sit, but mostly just let them be close. Butters finished his treat and came right up to the gate for some one-on-one sniffing and than moved casually away, because like most rabbits, he had something better to do. See a couple shots below.
You can see the gate in place and the proximity of the two - I thought it was very successful as neither party became overly stressed, excited or another very highly possible emotion. Stay tuned for our next installment. We might try to have a date with the two this weekend.
