Jealousy? Aggressiveness

Question

I have a 2 year old male pig named Jett.  He was fixed when he was 10 weeks old and he is also in the process of losing his baby teeth. Today my best friend came over for about 2 hours.  We were laughing and talking and sitting on the couches.  Jett tried to bite her 4 different times.  Any time he got a chance (an aggressive growl/hiss and snapped at her)  He has never done this to ANYONE before.  When we have people over it's usually groups or couples, or my husband is home.  I'm wondering if he was jealous at all?  Of mommy piggy time?  It was just me, my friend, and jett.  I even gave her cheerios to feed him and he seemed fine.  Was really excited and wagging his tail and eating from her palm.  And 5 minutes later.. snapped at her again!  Any thoughts on this would be great please!  :)

Answer
Jett has reached the Terrible Twos. Pigs reach sexual maturity at just weeks of age, but they don't reach adulthood until they are about two years old. At this age, the natural pig instinct to push themselves to the top of the herd begins to emerge.

Pigs see the world as a ladder. Each pig, or person, has their own spot on this ladder. Jett was trying to tell your visitor that he thinks his position on the ladder was higher than your visitor's position.

Offering treats seems like the right idea, but it makes the pig think visitors are treat dispensers. A better approach is to have the visitors make Jett do tricks for treats. If Jett doesn't know any tricks, like sit or spin, now is a good time to teach them.

Jett may soon start to show aggression towards other family members as he tries to move up the social ladder in his piggy head. So now is the time to take steps to prevent or minimize this.

Start by working on the tricks, and limiting or eliminating treats UNLESS Jett has earned them by doing a trick, or sitting on command, etc.

When visitors come, let them have Jett do tricks for them, to reinforce the idea that he is to respect them. If he charges them, the visitors need to push him back and say No! in a firm voice. If you do this, Jett might not understand that he needs to respect the visitors.

But when the visitors insist that he behave, he'll get the message faster. Some people give their guests squirt bottles. When the piggy charges, the visitors don't have to push or shove an angry pig, they simply squirt. Now, this works only on pigs that don't like getting squirted. And, the squirt bottle is needed - some pigs are smart enough to wait until the bottle is out of reach to misbehave.

If Jett tries to charge more than once or twice, the visitor (perhaps with your help) should make Jett retreat to his bed or room or other safe space. Pigs don't understand "time outs" in terms of leaving him in the room for a while, but they do understand the idea of being made to go to a different spot.

Remind Jett on a daily basis that people are in charge and pigs are pets. It's easy to step around a pig. But, it also leads the pig to think that he's more important. In a herd, pigs on higher social rungs often make pigs on lower rungs move. So take this approach with Jett. If Jett is in the way, do not step around him, make him move. Several times throughout the day or evening, make Jett get up and move to a different spot.

Now, when we treat other people this way, it seems a little bit mean. But, pigs don't see it that way at all. To them, it's just a reminder of who is in charge.

I highly recommend the book Pot-Bellied Pig Behavior and Training by Priscilla Valentine. Pris really understands the way pigs think. Her book has several chapters devoted to aggression and she goes into more detail than I can here. It's available from amazon.com or her site valentinesperformingpigs.com