Litter training for pot bellied pig

Question
Hi.

I am kind of at my wit's end and would appreciate any help you can offer.  I have had a pot bellied pig for about 3 months now.  She was 12 weeks old when we got her.  She's a housepig.  She quickly learned to use the litter box when she was small and we kept her in a bathroom.  Then, we transferred her to the kitchen and a bigger box and she was fine.  Then, we can her run of the 1st floor which is where the trouble started.  She insisted on peeing and pooping on the area run in the dining room, same spot each time, instead of her box.  So, we finally figured out a way to keep her contained in the kitchen again (she's grown A LOT) and she's back to peeing in the litter box.  However, she insists on pooping in her bed and then sleeping in it.  Everything I have read says pigs don't like to pee/poop where they sleep so I keep the bed as far from the litter box as possible but she does it every time and stinks from laying it (not to mention, she then tracks it everywhere so the kitchen is a complete mess).  Any ideas why she does this and what I can do to change it???

Answer
Pigs learn quickly but unlearn very slowly. You can retrain her, but it will take time. She may appear to adapt to her new habits in a few days or weeks, but she will remember her old, bad habits for months.

The trick is to set things up so that she can not make a mistake, then stick to it for at least six months, even if she seems to be doing everything right. Just one mistake will set everything back to the beginning.

Pigs naturally do not like to potty where they sleep, but when it happens for whatever reason, they get used to it. So that's what's happened here.

Young pigs have to go potty frequently. Often, they don't realize they have to go until it's too late to run into another room to use the litterbox, so they find a handy spot and potty there. So the first step is to keep piggy confined to just one room with a litter box and bed. Make her go potty in her box before letting her out of the room. And when she's out, keep her right at your side with a close eye on her. If the kitchen works for you, that's fine. Laundry rooms, large closets, and bedrooms also work well.

Take her to the potty box or outside to potty often. As soon as she gets up, straight to the potty box. After breakfast, potty box again. Two hours later, take her to the box again. If she takes a nap, as soon as she gets up, take her to the potty box. Take her to the potty box before and after training sessions and dinner time. Do not let her go more than two hours without going back to the potty box. The idea is to get her so empty she doesn't have an urgent need to make a mistake.

As you've noticed, pigs don't learn to potty in a box, they learn to potty in a particular spot. If a potty box is moved to one side, a cat will figure it out and go in the box. A pig will go in the spot where the box was.

Start by cleaning the dinning room with any good product designed to remove pet odors. Pigs have a much stronger sense of smell than people, so even if it smells ok to people, piggy might still be able to smell the mistakes. Unfortunately, this is a reminder of the bad behavior, so do not let her linger near that area.

One way to keep a close eye on piggy when she's not confined to her safe area is to keep her on a harness and lead. This way, when her two hours are up or she wakes from a nap, you can easily get her quickly to her potty box.

The pooping in the bed problem is a little more challenging. She's gotten used to going potty in her current bed. So the solution might be to toss it out and start all over with a fresh new bed. Sprinkle the new bed with a bit of vanilla, pigs love the scent. Also, put it in a different spot, because pigs learn to potty in particular spots.

Save a bit of the old bed and poop and put it in her litter box. Between poop showing up in the potty box and a brand new fresh bed, she should get the idea.

I highly recommend the book Pot-Bellied Pig Behavior and Training by Priscilla Valentine. Pris really understands how pigs think and why they do the things they do. She explains potty training and other piggy issues in much more detail than I can go into here. Her book is available from Amazon.