re-training our adolescent pig

Question
Hi Helen,

I am a three old 100lb very handsome pot belly pig.  When I was a piglet my owners had me on a harness and walked me quite regularly but over the last few years they have let me sleep and graze which I think is great, but they think I need exercise.  I sure let them know that I was not interested in walking as my tantrums should be nominated for an academy award.  They were great.  They offer me treats to walk but it is not enough to keep my attention when there is so much to look at and graze.  Perhaps you can shed some light on how you think they can bamboozle me into thinking walking is a good thing and stay focused while on the harness.

Snortfully signed,

Sam the Ham

Answer
Your owners are in for a challenge! Pot-bellied pigs just don't do brisk walks like dogs. They can learn to walk on a lead and follow along, but they tend to move at their own pace.

Start by practicing indoors, where there is little distraction. Choose a time that's a couple of hours before or after mealtime. Piggies don't concentrate well right after a meal.

Get the harness and lead on. Then hold a treat a few steps ahead of piggy, and get piggy to move toward the treat. Pick a specific number of steps, say 8 or 10, and make piggy take that many steps forward before getting the treat, while repeating the voice command like "walk" or "walk along".

Piggy will learn pretty quickly to take the number of steps necessary to get the treat. But, there's still a couple of potential problems. First, if piggy has found something a lot more interesting or tasty than the treat, piggy may likely take only the number of steps needed to get the treat, then try to go back to whatever was more interesting. It may take a few treats to get him to move along.

Doing simple tricks is also good exercise, and usually easier to do than walking on a lead. It's a good way for pig and person to learn how to communicate with each other.

One thing to think about with all this extra training is treats. Extra treats means extra calories that add up quickly. Use air popped corn or veggie bits or piggy pellets (subtracted from the daily ration) as treats.

Another way to get piggy exercise is to take advantage of the urge to graze and snurdle. Pick a spot that's safe to root around in (no toxic lawn sprays), and scatter air popped corn around. This also works well with piggy pellets. But, don't add extra pellets to piggy's diet. Instead, take 1/4 to 1/3 of the daily pellet ration, and scatter that. Of course piggy will notice that meals are a little smaller, so this is a good trick to use to keep piggy up and moving around after dinner.

Busy Bottles or other exercise toys can also keep piggy moving. Instead of scattering the pellets on the ground outside, put them inside an empty 2 liter soda bottle, with holes punched along the sides. Make sure the holes are big enough for the pellets to fall out as the bottle rolls. Let piggy push the bottle around to get the pellets.

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 covers trick and harness training in much more detail than I can here. Her book is available from Amazon.com