While you like to think of your potbellied pig as an adorable pet and not as a barnyard animal, guests could begin to equate your house with the likes of a barn if your pig is not properly potty trained. Luckily, pigs are food motivated creatures. As long as you keep the snacks coming, your pig can easily be potty trained in as little as one day.
Training your pig to go potty outside can be initially tricky. If your pig has an accident in the house you are too late. If you take it out before it needs to go potty, you could spend ages outside waiting for it to finally go. So how does one get even get started?
First, choose to begin training on a day when you know you will be able to be home. You might not like the sound of this, but it may be necessary to let the pig go in the house once. Be prepared to punish the pig clean and up the mess. When the mess is cleaned, don’t throw those paper towels away. Take the pig droppings and/or wet paper towels to a corner of the yard leave them there. Go back inside and give your potbelly lots a large bowl filled with water. If the pig is not interested in the water, entice him by adding some fruit juice in with the water. To really get things moving, you can fill the bowl up a second time.
Wait for about 20-30 minutes before taking the pig outside. Lead him over to the area where you left his droppings and wait for the pig to take it from there. Once he has emptied his bladder in the right spot, give him a treat promptly. Do not show him the treat before he goes potty, otherwise he will be too distracted by food to get to the task at hand.
As an additional reward, give the pig another bowl full of the juice/water mixture. Repeat the same steps again. Wait about 30 minutes, lead it to its potty spot outside and wait for it to go. Reward it with a nice treat and another long drink and continue the cycle until your potbelly is waiting by the door by himself. If he hasn’t caught on after one day, discontinue giving it lots of liquids by evening to avoid accidents during the night.
If you have chosen to litter box train your pig you can follow these same steps with one minor alteration. Instead of brining the pig’s droppings and paper towels to the yard, plant them in the litter box and show it to the pig. Encourage your potbelly to climb inside the box before it has to go potty so that it knows how to get in and out of the box when the time comes. When the pig is going potty in the litter box without your urging, then he is trained.
For each method, continue to reward good potty behavior for at least one month after your first training day to further reinforce the habit.
