Mini pigs started to become an option as pets back in the late 1980’s. We were breeding Chinese Shar-Pei at the time. Joss Kennels was a top breeder and the Joss name still appears in the distant linage of some of the best dogs of the breed. We weren’t new to breeding animals. From early days of breeding sheep for 4-H through horses and cattle, we understood that to make any group of animals better, you needed to set your goals and select future breeding stock based on three things. First was the pedigree of the animal. Do the ancestors have the qualities you are seeking to promote. It may be a great fantasy that a top race horse will emerge from two unknown parents, but that isn’t the way to bet! Next, does the animal itself must have the qualities you want. Then, can it produce those qualities in it’s offspring without losing other traits you need. A tiny pig is great, for example, but that doesn’t much matter if it isn’t healthy or if it has an aggressive temperament.

So, when I first heard about mini pigs as pets, I remember thinking, “Who would want a pig for a pet.” A couple in Charlottesville had a store. They got a pig and brought it to the store with them every day. It was a big attraction for the first year, but when it topped 100 lbs, they left it at home. I have no idea how large it finally got.

Then one day I was at a horse auction. Actually I was at the pre-auction buying tack. (If you own any kind of farm things like buckets, ropes, brushes, etc tend to wander off, or break.) We had horses, so that included things like halters, fly masks and other typical horse needs. My 12 year old daughter was wandering, looking at the animals and vendors. Suddenly she came up and sat down beside me and announced she needed $50. It was the mid-90’s and the amount wasn’t pocket change for a kid.

She rushed on to tell me she had seen these adorable pigs. They had straight tails and wagged them back and forth as they wandered the pen and grunted. The man who owned them wanted $100 each for them, but she had haggled him down to just $50 for the both of them. And, she assured me with pride in her negotiating skills, he was going to deliver them.

Believe me, delivery was the last thing I was worried about. By this time we had stopped breeding Shar-Pei because of the health problems that were ingrained in the breed. We had some left over chain link panels from dog runs we weren’t using and we put the pigs in there. My brother took one look at them and named one SPAM because he said you could eat one if you were desperate, but he wouldn’t advise it.

They turned out to be Potbelly pigs, and they were about 150 lbs each. They were both adults and had very little socialization, so it was impossible to touch them. My daughter, after weeks spent in the pen with them, did get them to come up and take treats, but they would never come to anyone else. I wasn’t very impressed with pigs as pets. If they got out, the only way to catch them was to shake a bag of potato chips.