We thought when we brought Shadow home two months after Tigger that we had all the bunny proofing necessary and were fully prepared for the new bunny. He proved us wrong really fast. Shadow was very quick to catch on to using the litter pan, but he added a new twist to it.

Shadow would hop in and use the litter pan and then he would dig it out. His excavation skills were exceptional and we would find ourselves with a huge pile of litter on the floor everyday. We would scoop it back in and he would dig it back out.

We went out and got some litter boxes with tops and found ourselves with a whole new set of bunny proofing needs. Tigger and Shadow were still just a few months old and pretty small at under four pounds each. We had to buy plastic stools for children so they could hop in and out of the boxes. Then we had to put carpeting on top of the boxes when they started to hop on top so that they wouldn't go sliding right off the slippery plastic. At one point we solved that problem by buying covered litter boxes that had round domed tops. They couldn't hop on those!

Shadow continued to dig, but the small size of the door kept down the level of the mess. We thought we had our excavator under control. When they got bigger we were able to get rid of the stools. Things went well for a number of years until just this past year when they both turned six years old. We noticed that they were sometimes not hopping into the boxes but going beside them and realized that maybe the hopping up and in was getting harder for them. So we invested in some litter pans designed for dogs that have a lowered edge on one side. Tigger and Shadow seemed to really appreciate the ease of getting into and out of these pans. Shadow really appreciated the ease of digging out these new pans and went back to excavating full force.

I went back to the store to try and figure out a work around. I discovered some large flat boot trays that turned out to be just the right size to put one on each side of the litter pans and one in front of them (the back is up against the TV stand). Now Shadow digs out into the boot tray and we can dump it easily back into the litter pan. However, we do have to watch to make sure that the little stinker doesn't try to dig out the boot tray too before we can dump it back in.

Our biggest regret is that we haven't ever had a place to put a sandbox. Our little digger would probably think he had died and gone to bunny heaven if we could give him a real digging outlet. We do make him very happy when we give him a pile of shredded paper (that is a bunny in that paper pile in the picture) to go burrowing in and he does love to dig underneath the hay pile in the hay bin. He comes up covered in paper or hay and if he takes off running the mess goes with him.

~ Rebecca Pullin