Lorina demonstrates how she bonds her two rabbits Ella and Charlie using the Desensitisation Method. She runs the sessions in her bathroom a neutral space, which allows the bunnies room to run around and interact. In the room, she sets up a litter tray, hay and grass to encourage the bunnies to feed together which is a positive bonding experience. She acts as a chaperone for the bunnies, watching their behaviour carefully and intervening with pats and pressure on the head before any negative behaviour can occur. Lorina watches for a tail up which is a sign of territorial behaviour.

Ultimately, Lorina wants the rabbits to be able to groom each other and to encourage this, she puts both of their heads together and pets them at the same time. This effectively tricks the bunnies into believing that the other bunny is grooming them. One of Lorina's bonding tricks is to put a bit of banana on the rabbits' heads to encourage them to lick each other.

When the bunnies get comfortable in the neutral space and are no longer aggressive towards each other, Lorina then moves them back into their pens without a divider so they can explore each other's spaces, making sure to supervise them.

Lorina notes that bonding is a boring job and requires lots of patience. But all the time you are spending with them also desensitises and bonds the bunnies with you! After running the sessions for a couple of hours a day, Ella and Charlie are newly bonded in a week.

00:00 Intro
00:51 Bonding Day 1 Letting bunnies explore
08:22 Bonding Day 2 Session 1 Repositioning heads
13:58 Bonding Day 2 Session 2
14:16 How to pick up your rabbit
15:15 Rabbit behaviour
20:03 Bonding Day 3 Session 1 Banana grooming trick
23:47 Bonding Day 3 Session 2 Using cuddles to distract
29:29 Bonding Day 4
31:10 Bonding Day 5 Sharing a pen
33:15 Bonding Day 6 Bonded!

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