He falls asleep in car rides, throws tantrums, likes to cuddle, enjoys walks outside and has the intelligence of a toddler.
Frankie the pot-bellied pig, who lives in a Guelph apartment with his human family, is a social media star.
“Over the last few months, people have been contacting me and they've really been enjoying following his Instagram and it makes me happy. I mean, I got him to make me happy but I'm glad like he makes others smile,” said Laura Broadley, who adopted Frankie five years ago.
“I even take him on walks and people want to meet him and it just makes me happy.”
Frankie, now five years old and 165 pounds, moved to Guelph four years ago with Broadley, her husband Tim Crawford and dog named Tucker.
Frankie’s Instagram page shows him engaging in various activities around the house such as resting under a blanket, eating, going out for a walk on a leash, cuddling and making silly faces.
The little guy has quite a personality.
“If he doesn't want to go on a walk, he takes his time to get down,” said Broadley.
“If I have friends over, he has a certain spot on the couch that he likes to sit on and lay with us. And if I have a friend over there sitting on that spot, he knows and he'll jump up on the couch," said Broadley.
Broadley said she and Crawford moved to Guelph just for Frankie.
The family was keeping him hidden in their Toronto apartment for nearly a year before they received a two-week notice to get rid of him.
“I said well, that's not happening,” said Broadley.
“And Tim agreed because he (Frankie) is part of the family. I would never get rid of a pet. So I said, well, we’ll have to find a place that allows pets.”
After comparing bylaws pertaining to animals in different cities, the couple chose Guelph, where he is allowed.
Broadley said people who come across Frankie are very curious about him.
“We see double-takes all the time,” said Broadley.
“We also get asked silly questions like 'oh do you feed him bacon?'”
“When we first moved in, we had all kinds of little girls knocking on the door to meet a bit of a celebrity in our building. It's pretty funny. Everybody loves him."
She adopted him five years ago from a seller on Kijiji who wanted to sell Frankie because he was growing larger in size.
“I guess they did some research and realized micro pigs aren't really real. He's gonna get big,” said Broadley.
David Kirkham, a mixed-animal practitioner at the Cheltenham Veterinary Centre who treats Frankie and up to 120 other clients with pigs, said keeping a pig is tricky because it's not a conventional pet.
Kirkham said he doesn’t like the term micro-pig which refers to pot-bellied pigs because there is a lot of variability in the breed that causes confusion.
He said while some pigs can grow up to be 40 or 50 lbs, others can grow to 250 lbs,” said Kirkham adding that the pot-bellied pigs today are essentially Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs cross mated with local domestic pigs.
“Back in the 70's people realized that the little pigs only had litters of two or three but when crossed with local domestic pigs, there would be litters of eight or nine pigs,” said Kirkham.
He said the cross-breeding results in many of the pigs having arthritis and joint issues which many people don’t know of until after they adopted the animals as pets.
Broadley and Kirkham both say it's important to do one’s research, and understand the traits of a pig before adopting one.
He says while pigs are loyal, smart and easy to train, some of those things can be turned around.
“If they don't have the right outlet for that intelligence and that energy, they will find it and they can be really destructive if they get bored,” said Kirkham, emphasizing the natural behaviour of a pig which is to root around.
For Broadley and Crawford, Frankie is an extension of their family. She says the very thought of ever abandoning him breaks her heart.
