​Pigs can be incredibly challenging pets… and once they have learned a few bad behaviors they can seem downright impossible. As we all know, pigs are exceptionally smart and can also seem unbelievably stubborn; successfully changing behaviors can be time-consuming and frustrating. On top of that, often when we try and change a behavior, it seems to get even worse! Today I'll be addressing extinction events and variable ratio of reinforcement - understanding these concepts will go a long way in helping us maintain our resolve, and hopefully sanity, as we work through problem behaviors with our pigs. Let’s consider a common scenario with a housepig:
 
Pig wakes us up every morning at 4am by screaming and we give him his breakfast to get him to be quiet. How do we stop Pig from waking us up every morning? Well, in order to change problem behaviors, we need to first identify HOW the bad behavior is being reinforced (remember: if you have a pig that displays problem behaviors, the behaviors are SOMEHOW being reinforced. It may not be obvious at first, but animals don’t continue to repeat behaviors that don’t receive reinforcement). So let’s say that we have identified the reinforcer – feeding Pig when he screams at 4am. So we either completely stop reinforcing it or greatly reduce how often we reinforce it, and… It doesn’t have any effect  - or more commonly, the bad behavior gets EVEN WORSE than before. What went wrong? First, let’s consider a different scenario that might be a little more familiar:
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We have a laptop computer. We go to turn it on one day and it doesn’t turn on. Do we immediately assume that it’s broken and give up? Of course not- we would certainly try several more times to get it to turn on. Our actions (turning on the computer) have been rewarded consistently in the past (the computer turns on), so we have received reinforcement that it SHOULD work. What happens if our computer is older and has a history of being finicky about turning on? We would likely try EVEN LONGER to get it to turn on before giving up, because we know eventually, our actions will probably be rewarded and the computer will turn on.
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These same learning principles apply regardless of species. So back to Pig –  remember, Pig wakes up at 4am every morning and we now know that by feeding him, we are reinforcing that behavior. So we decide that we will ignore him when he screams. The next night, Pig starts screaming at 4am. We ignore it, but it doesn’t stop. In fact, Pig screams EVEN louder now! Why is this? Pig is demonstrating an extinction event, or extinction burst. When a behavior that was rewarded previously is no longer rewarded, Pig will initially perform that behavior even more intensely or vigorously than before. Remember the above example of our computer not turning on! It is no different for Pig – he assumes that maybe we just can’t hear him, or maybe if he screams JUST A LITTLE LONGER, he will finally get food (and depending upon the behavior, it can take days, weeks, or even longer to see a change).
 
So what if we work really hard to ignore pig for several nights, but in a few days, we are exhausted and we just need him to be quiet so we can get some sleep, and so we give in just once? What if we only give him a treat every now and then, but not every time he screams? We might think to ourselves, 'well, surely the behavior will decrease because I’m only giving in occasionally and so Pig isn’t being rewarded all the time.' This is VARIABLE RATIO OF REINFORCEMENT, and it is actually even more powerful as a reinforcer than continual reinforcement. Remember how our laptop is finicky and sometimes takes a while to turn on? Because of this, we are MORE persistent with our attempts to turn it on. Pig is no different – if he is occasionally rewarded, he will persist EVEN MORE with the behavior that sometimes gets him treats.

In fact, variable ratio of reinforcement is one of the reasons why punishment tends to be so ineffective with pigs. ESPECIALLY if the reinforcer is food, there is almost no punishment that would be severe enough to stop a pig from continuing to try to obtain it, even if they know punishment is likely. If your pig snaps and grabs for food in your hand when you’re sitting on the couch, and 9 times out of 10, you scold him and push him away, but every 10th time he tries it, he manages to get a piece before you deliver the punishment, he WILL be on a schedule of variable rate reinforcement, and he WILL continue to do the behavior. You have simply turned your pig into a gambler. Unfortunately with pigs, they are also smart enough to know that 9 times out of 10, they will receive punishment instead of the reward, which makes them proactively aggressive and anxious, because now that behavior not only occasionally leads to rewards, but other times, that very same behavior leads to punishment. It makes for a very frustrated, confused, aggressive pig. The single most effective method for stopping bad behaviors is to remove the chance for reward 100% of the time. It can’t be 97%, or 98% or even 99.9%- that’s not good enough with pigs. That might mean fundamental changes to your household. Maybe pig isn’t ever allowed in the kitchen & dining area, and that is the ONLY place where people-food is allowed (no one ever said house-pigs were easy!).
 
(Here’s something else to consider:  Do you have a friend who is sometimes super fun to hang out with but other times is a total jerk? Why do you continue to spend time with this person? Because you are on a schedule of variable ratio of reinforcement – when you hang out with your friend, you hope that you will get lucky and this time will be fun…  and even if it isn’t, you know that next time might be!)
 
Why do we spend time at the casino when we know that our chances of being rewarded are extremely low? Why does Pig keep trying to get into the garbage even though he only occasionally succeeds? Because variable ratio of reinforcement is incredibly powerful, whether we’re a person or a pig.
 
When it comes to behavior, we’re all gamblers at heart.

​(...or, why pigs are more prone to bite indoors than outside)

Pigs have no interest in, or perception of, real estate.  If instead we mean ‘territory’ when we say pigs are more aggressive indoors than out, this also doesn’t really make sense. A pet pig’s territory would, in fact, be wherever he eats, sleeps and spends his days. This could be inside or outside. If it were actual territorial aggression, there would be no difference in aggression levels between indoor and outdoor pigs—wherever  their home, or territory, is would be the site of the same level of aggression. Pigs don’t magically have some sense that a house is worth more than a yard in terms of resource guarding.  A pig doesn’t go, “oh, well, I live outside, and this lame yard isn’t really worth fighting anyone over. If I was in that HOUSE though, oh man, that is prime real estate and I’d be willing to fight over that…” 

Lets consider instead that you are the pig… a room is essentially a dimly lit, enclosed space (remember that you already have bad eyesight); it’s cramped, there are walls and a ceiling that prevent you from fleeing danger easily; there are obstacles (furniture) all over that you could become entangled in if you tried to flee too (not to mention, if the pig doesn’t have continual access to a doggie door, he KNOWS he is trapped). Now consider that perhaps we have guests over, and now there are a lot of strange, scary people in a tight space in the house, and guess what, everyone wants to visit with the pig, because, "hey, it’s a pig! Living in the house! Haha, awesome!" So now, all these scary people are converging on, and towering over, this pig. This heightens the pigs’ fear response already... now add in that this pig likely has already ruled out flight as a possible means to avoid the scary situation, and that leaves fighting, that is, fear-based aggression—barking, snapping and then possibly biting — as the pig’s only option to deal with this frightening situation.  

So here's where it gets interesting… once the pig snaps or bites, we are told that the pig is trying to show dominance, and so we punish the pig, maybe we even put the pig outside. At a minimum, we have reinforced to the pig that yes, he should have been frightened (he was feeling fearful and then got punished!). On top of that, we have ALSO reinforced to your pig that his fear-based response of snapping and biting got him thrown outside, away from the scary things! Perfect! We might think that we are punishing the pig, but the pig has learned the EXACT opposite lesson! “Biting gets me put outside, AWAY from the scary things! It saved me!”  Next time this pig is in the same situation, he will be quick to use his newfound skill (biting) to achieve his goal of getting moved away from the thing he is afraid of. 

Misinterpreting emotions and behaviors can lead to a lifetime of frustration, fear and misery, both for a pig and his people. If your pig is exhibiting problem behaviors, contact a certified behaviorist to help decode the underlying emotions and to develop a scientifically-sound plan of action to help solve the problem.

Be sure to check out Decoding Problem Behaviors for more information.