We had so much fun celebrating Oscar’s first birthday! He got to open his gifts, a Bob-A-Lot food and treat dispensing toy, which he’s super excited to try and Meghan Trainor’s new single, No, since he loves tail dancing to her music. More importantly, he got his very own little birthday cake! I found a mini pig “ice cream” birthday cake recipe on the American Mini Pig Association website and decided to give it a try. It’s a frozen cake made of bananas, peanut butter, coconut oil, and oats, and I decorated the cake with Cheerios since Oscar loves them. I divided the recipe and used a jumbo muffin baking pan to make three smaller cakes instead of one large cake, and we put the extra two in the freezer for Oscar to share with Rylee another day. Since Oscar loves peanut butter and bananas, I suspected the cake would be a huge hit. He loved it! He made a huge mess, but he had a ton of fun!
Here is the video of Oscar eating his mini pig “ice cream” birthday cake. He liked it so much that he even cleaned his bib after finishing the cake.
Oscar even had a tail dance party to the new song he got for his birthday, Meghan Trainor’s “No.”
Oscar checking out his birthday present.
Time to open his present!
Yay! It’s a Bob-a-Lot!Cake time now!Mini pig “ice cream” birthday cake topped with Cheerios.Cleaning the rest of the cake off his bib.Happy birthday, Oscar!
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Oscar learned how to wave! Wave is one of my favorite mini pig tricks so far because there are few things cuter than a waving mini pig. This was a fun trick to teach Oscar because it’s a really easy, comfortable motion for him. Other tricks, like sit and jump, are less natural and are harder for him to perform, but Oscar seems to really enjoy waving for treats.
The mini pig training for wave builds on shake. If your mini pig hasn’t learned to shake, I highly recommend starting there and then working up to wave. Once your mini pig knows how to shake, learning how to wave is pretty easy since the motions for shake and wave are almost exactly the same for the pig.
Here is the training video with instructions on how to teach your mini pig to wave.
Once your pig knows how to shake, you need to make two changes to train your pig to wave. First, when your pig raises her hoof in the air, you no longer tap her hoof as you did when training shake. You want your pig to raise her hoof on her own and just swipe it in the air instead of meeting your hand on the way down to shake. Second, you need to switch the command word since we still want the pig to know how to shake. So, start by saying “shake” but, when your pig has her hoof in the air to shake, say “wave” to switch the command. Eventually, you can take the word “shake” out completely and just say “wave” to instruct your pig to raise her hoof. This can sound a little confusing in text, but it’s really pretty simple and is more thoroughly explained in the training video above.
How to train your mini pig to wave (building upon shake):
1. Ask your pig to shake. Say “shake” to get your pig to raise his hoof in the air. Go ahead and raise your hand like you are going to shake, but don’t touch your hand to your pig’s hoof like you would with shake.
2. When your pig’s hoof is raised in the air to shake, say “wave” and then click and give your pig a treat.
3. Ask your pig to shake again. You can again raise your hand as if you’re going to shake but don’t touch your pig’s hoof. As you continue the training, you should be able to start taking your hand out of the trick completely. So, go ahead and raise your hand if it helps your pig start the shake/wave motion, but you want to start decreasing your hand motion each time.
4. Again, when your pig’s hoof is raised in the air to shake, say “wave” and then click and give your pig a treat.
5. Once your pig has that down, you should be able to take out the “shake” command and your hand motions completely. Say “wave” and then click and give a treat when your pig raises his hoof up to wave.
Once your pig has both shake and wave training down, mix both tricks in with others like circle and kneel to make sure she’s really listening to each command. Oscar often performs his most recent trick repeatedly to get treats, so I like to mix all of his tricks up to make sure he’s really paying attention to the commands.
If this is your first time training your mini pig, I recommend starting with circle in order to get the mini pig training basics down and then build up to more challenging tricks. If you want to know more about clicker training and why I use the clicker, check out our mini pig training basics video.
Happy Easter from Oscar, Rylee, and family! Since it’s Oscar’s first Easter, we wanted to let him celebrate with a special snack. We didn’t want him to have Easter candy due to the sugar content, so we came up with a healthier treat for him. Oscar has eaten oats before, but he’s never actually had oatmeal. So, we made Oscar his very own oatmeal with raisins, blueberries, and bananas.
We put Oscar’s bib on and let him enjoy his Easter oatmeal. He loved every last bite! Happy Easter!
Oscar loves music! When we have music playing in the house, Oscar happily wags his tail to each song. With some songs, his tail appears to even keep the beat. I have been trying to get Oscar’s tail dance on video for a while now, but it’s been a challenge because he always gets distracted when I start searching for the camera.
I was in the kitchen recently when I looked down and noticed Oscar’s tail wagging to Meghan Trainor’s song “Title.” This time I was lucky enough to have my camera within reach, so I finally got his tail dance on video. I’ve read that mini pigs love music and even have preferences for certain songs or types of music. From what I can tell, Oscar is definitely a Meghan Trainor fan!
In the video, Oscar happily wags his tail to Meghan Trainor’s “Title” and then abruptly stops when the song ends. When the next song starts, he wags his tail again.
I recently wrote a post about using Move the Pig to deal with mini pig aggression and biting where I discussed how MTP has improved Oscar’s aggression and biting tendencies. After publishing that post, I received some requests to do a video on how we use Move the Pig, so Oscar and I made a video to share a demonstration of what MTP looks like for us.
Here is the video of us using Move the Pig. It starts out with a brief discussion of Move the Pig and then includes two examples of us using our interpretation of MTP. There is also some Oscar cuteness at the end of the second example as his reward for moving quickly and immediately after being asked.
Please keep in mind that this is simply how I’ve interpreted Move the Pig based on my research. I’m not an expert on Move the Pig, so please do your research on MTP to make sure you understand the technique before using it on your pig. I mention this a few times in the video because it’s a really important point for a pig owner’s safety when using the technique. Move the Pig techniques can vary depending on the severity of your pig’s aggression. Since Oscar’s aggression isn’t severe and since he’s still small enough that I can control him pretty well, I use some lighter MTP techniques. However, the technique I use with Oscar might not be safe for an owner of a larger, severely aggressive pig. In more severe situations, owners are often advised to use a board between them and the pig for safety. So, do your research first and decide which particular techniques are best for your pig in order to do MTP in a way that’s appropriate and safe for you and your pig.
