We were living in a nice house with more room than we needed, in a nice neighborhood, but we still longed for a house in the country. That summer of 2010, we were on a drive through the countryside surrounding Morristown, when we rounded a curve in the road and saw an old white farmhouse flanked on either side by pastures, with a backdrop of beautiful rolling hills. "Why aren't houses like THAT ever for sale?" asked my husband Henry as we drove closer. Then I saw it. A "For Sale" sign! We turned quickly into the driveway and wrote down the realtor information. As we approached the house, we could tell it had been abandoned and had many issues, but it was EXACTLY what we'd been hoping to find. We started imagining the chickens we could raise there, and our son Hank started asking for a pig. One of his favorite memories from early childhood was seeing a miniature Vietnamese potbellied pig at a street fair in the Virginia town where he was born. The pig had been taught to paint by taking hold of paintbrushes with his mouth and slapping colors onto a canvas. They were selling the pig's paintings at the fair, and Hank had talked about that "Paintin' Pig" for months.
We bought the farmhouse and began cleaning and painting. The house's many issues included taking out a central fireplace and adding a bathroom upstairs, and the time, money and energy expended postponed any further talk of a pig for a while. Then, in the Spring, some church friends announced that their daughter was looking for a new home for her "pocket" pig. We jumped at the opportunity, and they brought the pig, his doghouse, and a container of pig feed, to us. He was 6 months old and around 30 pounds. They had named him "Hambone" but we changed his name to "Pigasus Hambone". Mostly we just call him "Pig".
When I first saw Pig, I knew he was no pocket pig. We took him to the vet that first week to be castrated, because male pigs have an unpleasant odor and are much more aggressive without that procedure. The vet confirmed that he was a Vietnamese potbellied pig and not a miniature one either. Further research online revealed that he will grow to around 250 lbs. or more, depending on how much we feed him. He could live to be 25 years old, so he will likely outlive us.
At first, Pig lived inside the house. He had a favorite pink pillow that he liked to sleep on, and our golden retriever, Arwen, seemed to tolerate him being inside well enough. We both worked during the day, though, and I guess Pig would get bored. He destroyed his pink pillow and would get into anything within his reach. His strong rooting skills helped him open cabinet doors, and we would come home to a kitchen strewn with oatmeal and cereal. He was allegedly housebroken, but would have occasional accidents, and pig urine is not a pleasant substance, trust me. Pig LOVES dog food, we discovered, which did not sit well with Arwen, who started growling her resentments toward Pig. For all these reasons, we decided to buy a chain link pen for Pig to live in. We moved his house into it, and filled it with fresh straw. Pig loves his pen and burrows into his straw-filled house to stay warm on cold nights.
Our property is not completely fenced in, and one day Pig wandered across the street when we weren't looking. Henry called for him, and he came running, but an oncoming car hit him as he ran across the road. Pig rolled as Henry ran to him, but the car sped on. Pig got up and limped home. There were no visible injuries. We tried to get him out of his pen and into our van in order to take him to the vet to be checked out, but he wouldn't budge. The vet said to watch him for a day or two and that he would come to us if necessary. Over the next few days, we saw improvement in Pig's mobility, and he recovered completely except for one thing: he won't go anywhere NEAR the street now. I've always heard that pigs are smart.
