In the Dog training with a whistle thread, I read a post by techsar: This got me thinking about a pig we once had. My dad brought it home one afternoon, having caught it on a construction site where he and his workers were building a home. Only a little guy back then, but he was cute - as cute as a pig can be, anyway. Dad name the little guy "Arnold". On to my point. While dogs, cats, and other animals can be trained, I have found that pigs are extremely smart and fairly easy to train. My dad spent a fair amount of time with Arnold. (I will still a bit small back then. Otherwise, I guess I would have done the same.) I remember he would come when called to eat, running up to the back door of the house like a dog or cat. (Arnold was never caged and had free run of our entire back yard.) Dad also taught him how to fetch items. It was funny watching him, as a child. We don't have any pigs at the farm as yet. But, we (by "we", I mean me) hope to buy some pigs soon. Still gotta talk the "Boss" into it. She's apprehensive about having pigs, because they smell too badly, according to her. For Pete's sake. We could put them on the back side of the farm. I mean, it's five acres, after all. It's not like we don't have available room. Anyway, I can't help but wonder, what things could a pig learn? Clean and load a firearm? Okay, no opposable thumbs. But, I'm sure there are things I could try to teach a pig. Okay, I also may have too much time on my hands. Anyway, any members here ever trained animals to perform specific duties or acts?
Much like some women, chickens fallow the leader, and if you can teach the top hen the rest will fallow. With out a trainable alpha it is really hard to get them to learn . If there are too many alphas it is equally difficult. Roosters on the other hand either got it or they don't, and if they don't, their dinner .
While I haven't tried it myself, it has often been said that hogs are on par or perhaps slightly above dogs' intelligence level. Roll over and sizzle bacon?
Pigs can be trained to be draft animals although they aren’t really shaped well for yoking. They are trained to sniff out truffles for forage harvesting. Also either ginger or ginseng. I can’t remember. I’m sure you could teach them to attack. The plus is they also clean up the mess. There was a trick pig show at the Texas State fair for years with pigs doing a variety of dog like tricks.
Pigs are very clean if given a chance, if they have a place to get out of the sun and clean water they don't have to smell and their natural odor like that of a cow or horse isn't unpleasant. I have had sows that I hated to get rid of, had better personalities than some of my neighbors, but then I also have had a couple that I would like to have killed. They are very stubborn, we had a runt that us kids bottle fed when we were little and he lived in the house yard and loved to play tag with us, fetched sticks, played with the dog, etc, and ignored the pigs. When he got to be about 60 pounds, dad put him in the pig yard with the rest of the pigs and there was a 3 wire electric fence around the pen as we moved the hogs around the fields. An hour later the pig was back playing in the yard. Dad put him back in the pig yard, went back towards the house and the pig went running by headed for the yard. Took him back to be with the other pigs, went back to shed and watched the pigs. The house pig walked up to the fence, backed up about 6 feet, started to squeal, ran under the fence and really let out a holler, ran about 6 feet farther, stopped, shook a little, then started for the house to join his friends. He knew he was going to get a shock, didn't want to get shocked, but had decided it was worth it to get out of the pig pen. Never did succeed in keeping him in a pen. Seem to be closer to a mule than a dog, if you can convince them it is worth their effort, they will do what you want. A 300 pound pig has teeth that will kill you, more strength than you will ever dream, and still have a lot of wild in them and most can survive in the wild if they have to. No matter how much we liked them, at between 2 and 3 hundred pounds, and full maturity they were not suitable pets for children or even adults.
