Pigs might not always have had the best reputation, but these intelligent animals can make loving companions – if you have the space to house them

From ‘telling porkies’ to being ‘pig-headed’, language involving pigs can be negative, and throughout history these mammals haven’t always been cast in the most favourable light. Who can forget Napoleon and Squealer, for example – the controlling, deceitful pigs in George Orwell’s famous satire Animal Farm, who turn out to be just as bad as the humans they banish?

Where consuming pork is concerned, in some traditions and religions, pigs are considered ‘unclean’ and it is forbidden to eat them. More generally, while many people include pork in their diet, there is much debate about the inhumane conditions in which intensively farmed pigs (and other animals) are kept.

Pigs as pets

Thankfully, the perception of pigs has changed over recent decades, with many people campaigning to improve their welfare and even keeping them as companions. Numerous studies have shown that pigs are intelligent, sensitive and inquisitive sentient beings. They are quick learners, can solve problems and have long memories. People who keep pigs as companions say they play like puppies and form complex bonds with other pigs, as well as their owners and other pets. A research paper published in 2015 by Lori Marino and Christina M Colvin, entitled Thinking Pigs: A comparative review of cognition, emotion, and personality in Sus domesticus, identified ‘a number of findings from studies of pig cognition, emotion and behaviour which suggest that pigs possess complex ethological traits similar, but not identical, to dogs and chimpanzees’.