When a new pet moves in and the resident rabbit suddenly starts rubbing its chin on every chair leg and, worse, spraying furniture, the two behaviors look like one campaign. They are not. Chinning and spraying come from different systems, carry different meanings, and call for different levels of concern, so telling them apart is the first useful step. What unites them is the trigger: a stranger's scent has entered the home, and the rabbit's map of what smells like its own territory needs redrawing.
Chinning: The Harmless Signature
Rabbits carry scent glands under the chin, and rubbing that chin along an object lays down a personal scent mark that people cannot smell. Chinning is normal, social, and harmless, and every rabbit does it, especially to anything new or recently moved, because new-smelling things do not yet carry the rabbit's signature. Expect a burst of chinning after any change: the new pet, its bedding, a carrier in the hall, even a rearranged room. No cleaning routine removes the need, and none should try; a chinned chair leg is simply a claimed one, and the behavior settles as the newcomer's smell becomes part of the household background.
Spraying: A Territorial Claim in Urine
Spraying is different in kind. The rabbit flicks urine onto vertical surfaces, furniture, and occasionally the newcomer or a person, as a deliberate territorial statement. It is most often seen in an intact male, though it is not exclusive to them, and it tends to appear when the territory feels contested, which a new pet guarantees. Whether neutering belongs in the conversation is a question for your veterinarian, who knows the rabbit's age and health. What owners control is the setting around the spraying: how fast the animals are being introduced, how stable the resident's own core space stays, and how consistently marks are cleaned so yesterday's claim does not invite today's renewal.
Why the Newcomer's Scent Restarts Everything
From the rabbit's side, the home's scent map has been edited without permission. The core territory it had marked and memorized now smells partly of a stranger, so the resident re-stamps the important places to restore the map. That is also why introductions paced slowly work better than simply letting the animals live loose together from day one: gradual meetings, short and supervised, with each animal returning to its own stable space, let the new scent arrive in doses the resident can absorb. Keep the rabbit's own pen, litter area, and favorite resting spot unchanged during this period, because a stable core gives the rabbit somewhere that already smells right.
Cleaning Marks and Knowing the Vet Line
Clean marked spots promptly with plain washing and thorough rinsing, and keep a simple note of where marks appear, since a shrinking map of spots is the clearest sign the introductions are working. Most marking fades as the newcomer stops smelling new. The line that changes the response is physical: spraying that arrives alongside straining to urinate, blood in the urine, or a drop in appetite is no longer just a territory story, and those signs route to a veterinarian, who can investigate possibilities that behavior advice cannot. Care Teams holds the household's one introduction and marking plan, assigning who supervises each meeting, who cleans each mark and how, and who logs the pattern, so the rabbit gets the same slow pacing from every person rather than a different approach per helper. A single page in KinsLe, held inside the Care Teams notes for this introduction, tells every helper exactly how meetings run and how marked spots get cleaned.