squeeling!

Question
We have a 7 week old pot belly named Percy...Love him like crazy and he's doing great... One thing that makes me crazy is in order to take him any where we have to pick him up to go in the car and out or to take him to a back yard type of thing.. He squeals to high heaven!  I had to tell my neighbors that it is our pig and we weren't over here killing someone.  I can't imagine being able to stop this due to pigs naturally thinking we are going to hurt him.  He knows we love him and he loves us.  why the squealing???

Answer
Pigs are vocal animals. They make a wide range of sounds and can scream quite loudly. In their natural environment, piglets are never lifted or picked up. The only time a piglet is lifted off the ground is when a predator has grabbed him for dinner, so he has to scream.

Start by feeding piggy by hand. All food comes only from your hand, nothing in his dish or scattered on the ground. Start by sitting on the floor, let him climb in your lap and eat from your hand. Touch him all over, hold him, cuddle him. After a few meals, he should be pretty comfortable. At this point, stand up on your knees or sit in a chair, and hold him as he eats. After a few more meals, stand as you hold him and he eats his meals.

In the long run, it's easier to train a piglet to walk on a leash, ride in a crate, and walk up and down ramps. When he's older, he'll always remember how to do these things.

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 goes into harness training and socializing in much more detail than I can here. Her book is available from Amazon.com