Pig Gets In Trouble

Poor Pig. He didn't mean any harm. After all, the man next door was feeding the horse, and threw some corn on the ground for Pig. Any self-respecting pig would have done the same thing -- eat up the corn and then return the next day for more! Unfortunately, this time, the man's granddaughter and little yippy dog ran up, and Pig was scared. He simply cannot ABIDE barking dogs! It just, well, it brings out the wild boar in him, and (as the man's wife told us later) Pig chased the dog acting as if he would bite him (he would have), and the granddaughter (about age 6) was terrified. Why do folks give food to animals if they don't want them coming around again? Oh well. Now Pig has to stay in his pen unless we can be out with him to keep him away from the neighbor's property. I guess a fence is in our future, since, as Robert Frost tells us, they make good neighbors. We're thinking of an electric fence, since that is much cheaper than completing the existing chain link fence. I wonder if an electric fence would stop a pig who just wants some more corn.....?

Sitting for Treats - Dogs and Pig

Today we snapped this photo of Pig and his "sisters", Arwen and Susie, sitting nicely in hopes of a doggie treat. Henry and I are cooking crecey greens aka field cresses, for dinner. I gave some to Pig, but he did not like them. I guess he prefers his carrots and apples....

We are under a tornado watch tonight, and the horse next door is running at top speed back and forth across his pasture. Pig is out in the yard grazing. Hope the storm isn't too bad....this is when I really wish we had a barn! Later...

Ding Dong! Pig at the Door!

A December 28th excerpt from Facebook:

I opened my front door this morning to go get something out of my car, and Pig was standing on the front porch, as if he had been waiting for the door to open! So I invited him in, and we walked through the house to the back door (grabbing a couple of dog biscuits on the way), and out to the backyard. He is a funny guy.

Pig does like to come in every once in a while, but he loves being outside where he can root around and not get into any trouble. When he was little and living in the house, his rooting skills were so powerful, he would turn over furniture, open cabinets, and make quite a mess. Outside, he roots around in the grass for hours, and sometimes plays chase with the cats. Boots the kitten has jumped on his back a couple of times during one of these games. One day, I went out and called for Pig, as I couldn't see him from the deck. I saw movement out of the corner of my eye, and saw him, running down the hill next door, with a couple of horses in pursuit. He ducked under the barbed wire fence (as much as a pig can duck) and made it to safety. He LOVES his mealtimes (he IS a pig, after all), and I try to make his meals colorful and balanced nutritionally. He gets a cup of pig feed, topped with sliced apples, carrots, some raisins, some lettuce or other leftoever veggies, and a couple of dog biscuits, twice a day.

The Anatomy of a Piggy Pirouette

Pig has no neck. This is, I suppose, completely normal for his species, and I believe this fact to be the major component of the phenomenon we call the "piggy pirouette". Pig can be out in the yard, rooting around, when a loud noise such as a passing car will frighten him. Because he can't turn his head as we can, to look behind him, he will make a sudden, 180-degree turn with his entire body, seeming to pivot on his front feet and swinging his backside around. If the offending noise is really loud, he may make a second 180-degree turn. He then runs - fast - in a circle. If I could figure out how to get it on him, I'd make him a piggy tutu and videotape this feat of barnyard ballet. . . but I will just have to add an un-costumed video later. Stay tuned. . . .

My husband has always been the one to train our dogs, and he was the one who trained Pig to sit. He and Arwen, our Golden Retriever, that is. Arwen responds to the American Sign Language command "sit" and Pig, being a very intelligent pig indeed, took his cue from her and learned this trick quickly. My son taught Pig to go up and down the steps to the deck, by leaving a trail of doggie treats on the stairs (reminiscent of E.T. and Reese's Pieces). My next goal for Pig is to teach him to shake hands, and I still want to train him to paint.

The Reason for the Name Pigasus, and More...

Here are some excerpts from our family blog regarding Pig's name, antics, etc., and some more photos and videos:

June 2011: We have decided to change the pig's name to Pigasus (Pig for short), btw, because of the way he runs/flies? at top speed, with his little piggy feet barely touching the ground. When the rain started on Saturday, we let him out to go to the bathroom, and he was so thrilled by the wetness of the rain, he did a few piggy pirouettes and then FLEW to the back corner of the yard which he has appointed for such business....Well, I'd better stop here -- Pig is chewing up a magazine.....

July 2011: Here's Pigasus making his funny face (demanding another yogurt-covered raisin). He sticks out his lower lip in the shape of a triangle. Insert raisin, please.

December 2011: We'll be leaving for SC in the morning, so Pig celebrated the holiday early today with a Christmas plate of leftover pancakes. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good oink!

How It All Began. . .

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.