undiluted urine/frequent urination

Question
Hi, I have a 1 year old male pot bellies pig. He is neutered. We "rescued" him when he was about 6 months old.  All we really know about his first home is he was kept in a small area with  his food,water and litter box in the area. Maybe 6 by 6 feet.  We have another pig who is 3, neutered male.  I add this because we have successfully trained our first boy. They are both indoor pigs. They go out to play but live in the house. The second boy is having frequent urination problems - and frequent drinking.  Constant drinking in fact, and many accidents on the floor. We have had him checked by our vet - no infection, no diabetes, no kidney problems in the blood work. No sodium issues. The one thing she found was low specific gravity in the urine - his urine is in fact almost clear.  I think part of his frequent accidents is due to poor training the first half of his life - sometimes he seems to "get it", then an hour later he wets on the floor.  I am worried that there is a kidney problem we are missing, especially with the low specific gravity.  Do you have any ideas?

Answer
Constant thirst is a symptom in pigs for several reasons, such as a history of water deprivation, diabetes, and salt poisoning.

Salt poisoning occurs when a pigs eats a large quantity of something extremely salty, so much so that it throws the whole body system out of whack. The pig gets very thirsty and drinks a lot, and the combination of factors causes the brain to swell. I don't think that's the problem here.

Your vet has already checked for diabetes, so that is ruled out.

So, I suspect the problem is a combination of bad past experience and a bad new habit. Sometimes water deprived pigs will pee as they drink, holding their urine until the next time they get water. This is a difficult and tricky issue. Each pig is unique, so what works for one may not work for another.

I'd start by starting over at square one with potty training. First, thoroughly clean the accident sites, with any good product designed to remove pet urine odors. Once the spot is thoroughly dried and cleaned, tossing a throw rug or mat on the spot and feeding his meals on that spot might help change his mind about the purpose of that spot. Keep him confined to a fairly small area, like one room, with close and easy access to his litter box, unless he is right next to you, ideally on a harness and leash. Don't let him wander to another room, or even too far away from you!

Take him to potty often - as soon as he wakes up in the morning and from any naps, before eating, after eating, every couple of hours. The idea is to get him empty so he doesn't have the urge to have an accident. Because your pig is drinking, and peeing, a lot, you'll have to take him out to potty a lot, like once every hour or two hours, at most.

When you take him to potty, make sure he potties. Sometimes this can take a few minutes. If, after say five minutes, there's no potty, put him in his crate. Directly into his crate. No stopping to eat or anything else. Leave him there for five or 10 minutes, then take him back to potty. Repeat this until he potties. Do not give him the opportunity to make a mistake! It's either the crate or the potty until he goes.

If he isn't crate trained, or doesn't have a crate, use a small room like a bathroom or laundry with a litter box. It's ok to have a water dish in there. If he doesn't potty in the litter box after 5 or 10 minutes, take him back outside or to his regular indoor box.

Pigs learn quickly. They unlearn very slowly. After a couple of weeks, piggy will probably be going on command when taken to potty. But, piggy will still remember that he was pottying in the house! So even though piggy has learned quickly, he's still unlearning very slowly. It will be a couple of months before the memories of his old habits begin to dim. The important thing is to keep up this strict potty training for at least three months, even if he seems to have caught on sooner. The goal is to deeply ingrain the correct behavior while giving the old behavior a chance to fade away.

Give him something new to think about by trick and harness training. The harness training part is great, because if he's on a harness right next to you, you have the opportunity to stop any potty accidents the instant they start. Plus, you can easily take him to the potty often.

Finally, it might help to address the excessive drinking somehow. I am assuming piggy has constant access to drinkable water. Is his food dish near his water dish? Sometimes, pigs like to take a bite, then a drink, then a bite, then a drink. The ability to easily drink while eating might soothe his psychological need to drink at other times. Another approach might be to moisten his food. Dry food might trigger a memory of dehydration, moist food might not.

Also, if it's warm enough outside, a pool or sprinkler to play in might soothe his water needs.

Urine from healthy swine have the lowest specific gravity of any domesticated species, and in young pigs, it may be even lower. Is the specific gravity low for a young pot-bellied pig, or just lower than your vet expected to see? www.farec.org has some veterinarians who will work with other vets over the phone. You or your vet may want to contact farec to connect with these vets about the low specific gravity.