Svinia as she is called looks like an ordinary pig because it really is a pig of the pot belly breed from Vietnam, one and half years old and a female.
At the beat of the hands of animal trainer Lito Razon Reyes of Pentor, Dinalupihan, Bataan, Svinia (Russian name for pig) mumbles a sound with a rhythm. “Stop”, commands Reyes and Svinia stops “singing.”
“Louder or softer,” the trainer tells her and she obeys. The pig “shakes hands” using its right front leg with Reyes and bows its head, bending her two front legs.
Reyes, married to a Russian woman having worked in Russia for years, said he discovered the “talent” of the pig when he heard it cried asking for food. “Sabi ko sa sarili ko, kakanta ito sa tamang training,” he said.
For three months, almost daily, he trained Svinia under the consent of officials of the Zoobic Safari that owns the pig. “And here she is now singing,” Reyes said proudly.
Zoobic Safari is located adjacent to the Morong (Bataan) gate of the former American Naval Base, now the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority.
Training animals to do extraordinary acts is not new to Reyes. He has a monkey that skates and plays basketball and dogs that do various tricks.
