[Gpdd] BEHAVIOUR--how smart is your pig

[Karen Murphy]

Hi Everyone!  I am a relatively new piggie slave and new to the list. I have enjoyed reading all the great stories, songs, and info for a while now.

I am slave to Meekly, a tri-colored Silkie mix who has come a loooong way from the timid creature he was when I rescued him a couple months ago.  Warning--the squeamish may want to look away from this next sentence.  Poor Meekly had been left in a cage with a snake for over thirty hours.  Thankfully, the snake did not want such a furry snack, and I came along in time and so Meekly came home with me.

He is so smart cause he is learning to trust again and has his own little "meek" way of dealing with the world.  Afraid at first that veggies might want to eat HIM, he refused all freshies.  Then after watching Vivian in the next cage over (more on her later) he learned veggies were a good thing, but being scared still, had to devise a way to have his parsley and eat it too.

So now Meekly has trained Mommy to lay his freshies right next to the entrance of his pigloo and step back quietly.  Slowly, meekly, a little nose comes out, sneakily pulls the veggie in, and then munches away enthusiastically. It is so funny, like an alligator pulling his prey back into his lair!!!  And Meekly thinks he is fooling Mommy into thinking he is not accepting fresh foods, but you can see the tip of each veggie wiggling out the front of his pigloo while he munches, then it disappears as if by magic!

Vivian would argue that she is the smarter of the two pigs, as she has Mommy so trained that she is staying up every night waiting for something called "babies" to happen.  Vivian was found abandoned by our local Humane officer and was apparently in the family way, having been housed with two males.  Vivian is a really cute Silver and white Abby mix who wheeks every time I give the bunnies hay, even if her hay has also just been re-filled--she wants NEW, FRESH hay--whatever the others are getting, she has to have too.

No matter how quiet I try to be, she always knows and wheeks until I give her at least one or two more strands, then she is satisfied.  She loves the sounds computer games make and wheeps along with them.  She hates it when I sneeze and always reminds me to cover my mouth, hee, hee.

Vivan definitely knows her name and will talk back happily when I call it.  She is getting so much extra attention, being in the family way, I am beginning to worry she will be smart enough to figure out a way to make this gestation thing last forever...Surely that is just me being sleep-deprived, huh?

Karen, 
Vivian and Meekly piggies, plus a whole lotta bunnies