Pigs have a long history of performing remarkable feats

If you scratch his tummy, Ivory the clever pig will take you on at a computer game. He wields the joystick with his snout which makes it difficult for him to see the screen. Floppy ears don’t help when he’s tracking the cursor. Even so, Ivory has proved a dab trotter at gaming, outperforming his porcine friends, Ebony, Omelette and Hamlet. Researchers at Purdue University, Indiana are delighted with all four, claiming last week that they’ve revealed cognitive skills never before recorded in swine.

​Anyone who’s ever kept pigs will tell you how much they like to play. My two big black pigs enjoy hide-and-seek and football. They grunt with excitement at any game involving water and a hosepipe. But more than anything, they love a round of pear chase with a bucket of grainy windfall pears. I chuck a couple of pears down the slope and off they go at a gallop, gleefully slipping and sliding, barging and wrangling, snuffling after the scent of fruit.