Are You Making These 5 Mini Pig Training Mistakes?

Are You Making These 5 Mistakes When Training Your Mini Pig?

by Christian Voltaire Phillips

​1.Rewarding Them for Inappropriate Behaviors
If your pigs go somewhere they're not supposed to, or try to rip your couch, don't give them treats to get them to stop.  This merely reinforces the bad behavior and makes them think it's a good idea.  Wait until they have stopped and are doing an appropriate behavior before giving any form of positive reinforcement. 

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​2.Putting Them Down When They Squeal
Our piglet Millie squeals every time she is picked up.  She does it because when she was little, if she squealed she was put down immediately (because we have neighbors that live close enough to hear her squealing).  Again, this goes back to not reinforcing a behavior you want to avoid.  Now we take Millie to the middle of the woods where we can let her be noisy without having to put her down.

​3.Letting Them Think They are Dominant
Pigs have a hierarchy and do things like move other pigs out of comfortable places to claim dominance.  If you let them push you around, it will be very hard to train them to avoid future bad behaviors and possibly even aggression.  Prove you are the top pig by moving them (it is a game called ‘move the pig’ where you just move them from where they are in order to show that you are ‘top pig’).  This is especially important for people with kids.  Children must show their upper position in the hierarchy to ensure that your pig will not later try to be aggressive towards or dominant over them.

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​4.Feeding Them from the Table
If you feed your pigs from the table, you're practically asking for them to beg.  Charlotte, Millie and Emmie don’t beg at the table, though they do sit underneath the table in the hopes of stray food falling to the floor.  And, I’ll admit, I’m often guilty of being the reason they hold on to such hopes. 

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​5.Laugh at Bad Behavior
Pigs are as smart as toddlers, so they think you laughing at what they do is a sign that they are doing something that you like.  For example, if they rip your couch and then burrow into it and you laugh, they think it's something they should do again to humor or please you.  Again, make sure not to reinforce bad behavior.  This is hard when they are just so cute when doing many of their behaviors you want to discourage.