HELP! My Pig Hates My Boyfriend!

*** This episode is sponsored by Mikko’s Choice. Mikko's Choice is a small women owned business that provides high quality CBD for your pig. Use code pigpodcast to get 25% off your first order. $5 from every sale is donated to animal rescues. Go to www.Mikkoschoice.com or email info@mikkoschoice.com for more information.***   What do you do if your pig hates your boyfriend or girlfriend or just your friends in general? What do you do if your pig hates when strangers or company come over? This is what we are talking bout today. It was a special request so I am happy to get this information out there so people can understand why their pig has a hard time around strangers. Pigs are prey animals , so brining them in the house and taking away their pig responsibilities doesn’t change those natural instincts. A pig has to be taught that everything is safe. Pigs are very nervous around anything new. New things are scary. Sometimes it seems to come out of the blue that our pig starts to show signs of aggression to strangers. If you understand your pig you will understand the things that stress them out and cause them to act in a way that is aggressive. We will talk about why this happens and then how to prevent it and how to fix it.    In the wild if someone enters the pigs territory the pig perceives this as a threat. They have one thing on their mind, get this threat away from us. So a pig will pull out all their scary behaviors. When we have a pig in our home and a stranger, or friend comes over the pig will be stressed because in their mind they think this is a threat. So what can we do to make strangers or friends easier on our pig?   Keep our pig use to change Have a flexible routine Reinforce a calm state of mind Reward good behavior Give them daily enrichment Give them outside time   How can we help our pig with strangers in general? Constantly take your pig to new places Let people interact with them and pet them Never force your pig to interact with people Start when a pig is young if possible If we understand signs of stress and anxiety it will help us be in control of situations. If we see that our pig is stressed we need to step in and get their attention and change their mindset. Ease the pressure by getting control of the situation. If we are going to have people over we want to set our pig up for success, so we need to really think about how we are forcing people on our pig. You might not be able to make your pig be comfortable around strangers and you may have to be okay with that. A pig that is already hating strangers and company needs a backup plan. Instead of being defensive for our pig, we can try to think of ways to keep our pig comfortable when people come over. Sometimes that means taking them out of the situation all together. We can introduce our pig to the person with some form of barrier between them and gradually let them interact and get comfortable together.    Autumn’s Links:  Website: https://www.autumnacresminipetpigs.com/ Email: Autumn@autumnacresminipetpigs.com Educational Membership Group: https://www.autumnacresminipetpigs.com/support-group-subscription/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/autumnacresminipetpigs/ Facebook:  HTTP://Facebook.com/autumnacresminipetpigs Mighty Networks: https://autumn-acres-mini-pet-pigs.mn.co/share/EPW2Ie5isMX4T0Ve YouTube: https://youtube.com/channel/UCGue5Kp5AwOXkReCGPUyImA Stan Store: https://stan.store/autumnacresminipetpigs Newsletter: http://eepurl.com/hDNizT