Pigs will fly on Saturday, July 23, when Valentine’s Performing Pigs come to the North Bend Block Party. The Community Stage is where Petunia the Vietnamese pot-bellied pig will amaze party-goers by jumping through hoops and other unlikely piggie feats, and she’s not even the star of the show.
Nellie, billed as “The World’s Smartest Pig” when she performed on Letterman and Leno, is the finale of the Valentine’s half-hour show, says owner Steve Valentine. Before she appears, Snort will get on stage and do something, maybe skateboarding, maybe tear up the carpet, maybe wander off the stage. “He’s our only boy pig, and he gets into mischief, does his tricks wrong—on purpose, I’m sure,” says Steve.
Petunia, affectionately called Petunia Pancake for the maple-syrup scent she was born with, is next, followed by 3-month-old Oinky.
“We have a tiny baby one there just to be cute,” Steve said, although Oinky may know a trick or two by then.
Superstar Nellie closes out the show with demonstrations of her basketball, soccer, bowling and golf skills, plus many of the tricks that Steve and his wife Priscilla have taught her in the past 12 years.
“It still amazes us how they can do that,” says Steve.
The Valentines, now a show-biz family, started out as simple pet owners, but the pets were pigs.
“My wife always loved pigs,” said Steve. “She had a pig doll when she was 3.”
When they could finally afford the increasingly popular Vietnamese pot-bellied pig, they got Nellie, now 12 years old. She would have stayed a simple, 100-pound house pet, too, if she hadn’t been so smart.
“She was bored and getting into mischief, so we started training her to do little tricks,” Steve said.
Using popcorn as a reward, Priscilla trained Nellie to push a ball with her snout, at first. As the tricks got more complicated and strenuous—skateboarding, for example—the rewards had to improve, too, and pizza was the clear favorite.
Nellie became a performer after the Valentines started taking her to pig shows. Steve said they didn’t know anything about conformation, and Nellie didn’t have the classic pot-bellied pig look, so they didn’t win anything for looks, “but we just excelled in the tricks phase.”
Each pig show included a tricks competition, which Nellie usually swept. So the Valentines started on the pig show circuit, at their own expense. Later they decided to do private shows, birthday parties, festivals, and eventually, state fairs.
“The further south you go, the more popular the pigs are,” Steve observed.
The pigs love to perform, and on show days, they line up at the car, waiting to be dressed in their trademark leis and loaded into their kennels for the trip. At home, though, they’re like any other member of the family, just shorter.
“It’s like having 2 year-old children for 15 years!” Steve joked.
• Valentine’s Performing Pigs are on the Community Stage, from 1:30 to 2:15 p.m. After their performance, audience members can meet the pigs and ask questions. Learn more about Valentine’s Performing Pigs at http://www.valentinesperformingpigs.com/video.html.
