Via the awesome i&o blog, we bring you Cinders, a pig with mysphobia - a fear of dirt. The porker's owners, Debbie and Andrew Keeble, pig farmers and sausage makers in North Yorkshire England, had never seen anything like it. The tiny piglet would cower and shake in the grass at the edge of the mud pit while his siblings gallivanted about in the filth like proper British pigs. The family's five year old daughter suggested putting her Paddington Bear boots on the pig to overcome its fear and it seems to have worked.
Zooillogix was skeptical that one could actually diagnose a piglet with mysophobia, but the video we found says it is so with a British accent, thereby proving it is true. (Update: they took the BBC video down so we have replaced it with a less authoritative CNN one)
Brain & Behavior
Comments
That may be a British accent, but it's not David Attenborough, so it isn't definitive.
Posted by: Bob O'H | July 7, 2008 1:21 AM
My favorite part is that they are Paddington Bear boots...makes the needle just go right off the Cuteometer.
Posted by: Edman | July 7, 2008 5:41 AM
Umm, if that piggy is being raised on a sausage farm, I think he has a lot more to worry about in the future than some dirt on his little piggy toes.
Posted by: Adrienne | July 7, 2008 7:12 AM
Apparently the pig's owners have committed to not sausagizing this guy.
Posted by: Andrew | July 7, 2008 10:24 AM
He is so adorable.
Posted by: Debbie | July 7, 2008 10:29 AM
"Apparently the pig's owners have committed to not sausagizing this guy."
And the behavior's function was found! Now we wait and see if its offspring will learn the same behavior and survive too! :)
Posted by: Felipe | July 8, 2008 2:16 AM
Ah-h-h! It makes me really proud to be British - I love us dearly :-D
Posted by: Mrs Hilary Victoria Minor | July 8, 2008 5:54 AM
Quit porking fun at the suffering of the pork and down-trodden....
Posted by: Ian | July 8, 2008 7:34 AM
*Quietly wishes for a pet with a strange and cutely-resolved neurosis*
Posted by: Jenbug | July 9, 2008 5:27 PM
Please link to a new video, that one has been made private and cannot be viewed any more.
Posted by: confused.brit | July 13, 2008 2:54 PM
aw! i don't know how you came across this, but pretty strange!
Posted by: christina | July 21, 2008 12:39 PM