IN TRAINING: Gidget the three-month-old miniature pig is being used as a training distraction for assistance dogs like Oscar. Source: The Cairns PostA THREE-month-old Australian piglet could be the world's first pig to help canines train to become assistance dogs.
Gidget the piglet attends training sessions at the Association of Australian Assistance Dogs in Mareeba, northern Queensland, for the past three weeks as a training distraction for the dogs,The Cairns Post reports.
Owners Sarah Plowman-Ah Chee and her husband, Lester, said the piglet was given to their son, Augustine, as a baptism gift.
Gidget shares her home with a horse named Beth, a pony named Tony, silky rooster Ralph, Penny the hen and a goat named Mona Lisa.
Sarah Plowman-Ah Chee said the piglet understands there is rest and play time, and slips into different modes when she works with the dogs.
Director of training Liz Oehm said she always wanted to train a pig, and Gidget taught the assistance dogs to work with an unusual distraction.
She said pigs were used in training for other animals, but in Australia it was definitely a first for a pig to be in training with about 10 dogs.
“They (dogs) just think she’s another one of them except she snorts,” Oehm said.
“Pigs smell differently to dogs and are very, very smart.”
