pot beey pig

Question
i have found a 1 and a half year old pot belly pig been out side all its life can u make it in to a house pet with other animals i have small dogs

Answer
A one & 1/2 year old pig is still very young and trainable. Take it slow, and piggy will most likely adapt to living indoors with you.

Take it slow and easy. If piggy is not really trained or socialized, start there. Before bringing piggy inside, teach piggy a few simple things like sit or spin. The goal here isn't for piggy to learn a trick, but for piggy to learn to listen to you. If you can, now is also the time to start harness training, so you can guide piggy inside easily.

Make it easy for piggy to get inside by using ramps instead of stairs and non-slip mats on slippery floors. If piggy is harness trained, just slip on the harness and lead piggy up to the house. If not, try to coax piggy along with a few treats.

Start by having piggy indoors for just a little while, half an hour at the most. If temperatures inside are very different from the temperatures outside, keep the visits short until the weather outside gets closer to the indoor temperatures. Sudden temperature changes are hard on piggies.

When indoor visits are about an hour long, start taking piggy outside for a quick potty break. Chances are piggy will not want to go potty inside - but there's no guarantee what your particular pig might decide to do. The best thing is to make sure piggy does not have a chance to make any potty mistakes.

A good way to help piggy enjoy "inside time" is by feeding meals indoors - but away from any other animals.

If piggy and the doggies already know each other, then you don't have to worry much about that. But if they have never met, again, take it very slow. Have the dogs locked away when piggy comes in for visits. Gradually introduce them by letting them see and smell each other, but not touch, for example by using a baby gate between them.

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 many topics in much more detail than I can here. Her book is available from amazon.com.  Also, there's a couple of piggy chat groups on Yahoo Groups. Piginfoandchat and Potspot are two good ones. They are friendly groups and are happy to answer questions about specific problems that might come up while you're helping piggy make the change from outdoor to indoor.