The AMPA’s official Mini Pig Training Handbook: Tricks, Life Skills, and Communication With Your Mini Pig is the first training book of it’s kind! An impressive 130 pages full of training instruction, behavior, communication, problem solving, aggression, tricks, manners, and FULL COLOR or B & W photos to help you visualize the wonderful companion that is within your reach.
One of the keys to a long and successful relationship with your mini pig is training and enrichment. Pigs are incredibly intelligent animals. Highly trainable and they thrive when their minds are stimulated and challenged. A well trained pig is a happy pig. Every time you train with your mini pig, you are improving your communication and strengthening your bond. Training teaches your mini pig the skills she needs to be a well behaved member of the family. Training also gives her the tools she needs to communicate with you.
Basic Life Skills ♦ Harness and Leash ♦ Potty Training ♦ Fun Tricks Obstacle Course ♦ Teaching Respect ♦ Enrichment Activities
Introduction To Training Mini Pigs
Why Teach A Pig A Trick?
Training Series: Blog 1
By now, we’ve all seen the cute videos of pigs doing amazing tricks – if you haven’t, jump on YouTube NOW! There is no denying, a pig playing a piano is amazing, a pig giving kisses is adorable, and a pig running a dog agility course is entrancing. However, there are many reasons to train your pig, early and often. It all comes back to quality of life.
Pigs are highly intelligent animals. This sounds like a bonus in pet qualities until you see the destructive or frustrated side of a bored pig companion. When pigs start rooting up your flooring, chewing holes in your wall, or raiding your cabinets and refrigerator, he may be lacking some enrichment and stimulation in his life. Pigs are thought to have an intelligence level of a 3-year-old human child. Can you imagine leaving your toddler inside the house for days, weeks, or months at a time? With no friends, nowhere to go, no one to play with, no one to talk to, sometimes locked up in a little cage, no mental stimulation and no physical outlet. Human kids need a lot of stimulation and opportunities to enjoy themselves and stay out of trouble. The same rings true for our very intelligent and sometimes active porcine pals.
Every time you train with your mini pig, you are improving your communication and strengthening your bond. Teaching your mini pig the skills she needs to be a well behaved member of the family. Training also gives her the skills she needs to communicate with you. Instead of a frustrated pig rooting mercilessly at your ankles or swiping in defiance, she will do cute little spins in the kitchen as she tries to “work” for what she wants. As the famous Priscilla Valentine used to say, “you can pay a pig to do anything”.
It doesn’t matter which tricks or commands you teach. You can go for adorable, you can go for functional, or you can go for wow factor. The important aspect is that you are interacting with your pig, teaching her, using her brain, giving her an outlet for her energy. You are giving her quality of life and she is loving it!
What can you teach a pig?
- Sit
- Stay
- Spin
- Crawl
- Back up
- Walk on a harness
- Relax for hoof trims
- Come to their name
- No
- Out or leave it
- Shake hands
- Wave
- Push a ball
- Pick up objects
- Paint
- Solve Puzzles
- Honk a bike horn
- Play a piano
- Play guitar
- Kiss
- Obstacle course
- Swim
- Use stairs
- Use a doggy door
- Step up (onto an object)
- Jump through a hula hoop
- Run through a tunnel
- Roll out a red carpet
- Walk up a ramp
- Understand sign language
- Distinguish colors
- Distinguish shapes
- Walk on teeter totter
- Weave through poles
- Figure 8 through legs
- Ring a bell to go potty outside
- & Lots more!
Where can I find more training resources?
The American Mini Pig Association has a wealth of educational articles including training and enrichment activities:
Enrichment Activities For Bored Pigs
Visit our website to learn more about mini pigs, become a member of the AMPA and register your mini pig as a pet!
Benefits of training your pig
- Enriches quality of life
- Releases frustrations and tensions
- Builds leadership relationship
- Strengths bond between pig and owner
- Pigs LOVE learning!
- Less behavioral problems
- Less destructive problems
- Better communication and understanding
- Opens the door for far more learning/training
- Great for public displays of pig’s intelligence!
- Helps others to interact and get to know your pig
- Good recall can mean the difference between life and death in an emergency
