Ever since I married a woman who owned a horse, a dog, a chicken and a few crawly creatures, my life has been filled with animals of one sort or another. That sort almost always refers to rescue animals. It baffles me that people can be so cruel to helpless animals, animals that only want to love unconditionally, as long as they can get an occasional meal in return. But that’s the world we live in, not unexpected, but disappointing. So to say my household is occupied by a few animal orphans would be an understatement. We have rescued horses that were on the verge of starvation, dogs left in the hills as coyote bait, and turtles that were smuggled into this country illegally and came to be adopted by us after a sting operation left the perpetrators in prison, but perhaps our most interesting rescue story is about Penny.
Penelope, you see, is a pig. Perhaps that’s unfair. She’s not just a pig, but a Russian Boar whose mother was killed by a mountain lion. Five years ago, one of my wife’s karate instructors, Scott, was on a hunt for Russian Boars when he came across the body of Penny’s mom. Searching the area, he found a small tail wiggling from out of a rabbit hole. Once he dug the day old flea covered piglet out of the hole, she bit him. Scott dropped her on the ground saying, “Fine, you can make it on your own.” But Penny, being both feisty and determined, followed him back to his truck. Scott decided that fate was on the side of this pig that day and loaded her into his cab. He didn’t even hesitate before driving to our house and dropping her off with us.
We didn’t name her until we were sure that she would survive, which meant bottle feeding and hand nurturing, but eating was never a problem for this little one, and before long, Penny was off the bottle and eating soft foods. Because she was raised with dogs, Penny assumed she was one. She learned how to use the dog door, go on walks, and sleep on the couch with the other dogs. She interacted with the dogs who sniffed her up and down before deciding she was some kind of wiry black-haired terrier. My wife, a kindergarten teacher, took her to school so the kids would have an unusual subject to write about. Needless to say, the kids fell in love with Penny and Penny fell in love with whatever the kids were eating that day. On our dog walks, she was leashed and trotted along with the other dogs. People who passed us would comment, saying “Oh, what a nice group of dogs” before the inevitable, “PIG!” I suppose it was safe to say that not many people had seen a pig on a leash before.
We soon learned that pigs double their weight every week, so as the days passed, Penny grew larger and larger until one day, she no longer fit into her dog harness. Even buying an extra large harness didn’t help. Penny’s curiosity knew no bounds. Once she had a direction in mind, it was difficult to maneuver her 100 pounds, so walks often became interesting side trips of sniffing flowers, chasing leaves, and looking for leftovers. More than once she dragged us over to a neighbor’s yard when she wanted to root. Knowing our neighbors probably took a dim view of a pig rooting in their yard, we decided it was time for Penny to forgo her dog walks and stay at home. We still left her the run of the house when we were gone, but with enough time on her hands, Penny found enough mischief to be renamed Loki.
One sunny morning in May, for example, we came home from our dog walk to a house reeking of some strange smell. “Dad, I think you need to see this,” my daughter said as she tracked down the odor. As it was nearing the holiday, I had just purchased a case of Bud Light beers but hadn’t put any in the refrigerator yet. While we were gone, Penny had discovered the box of beers and proceeded to open and drink each and every beer. We found her snoring on the couch, dead drunk. Having learned her lesson early in life, Penny has not touched a drop of alcohol since that day.
As with all animal stories, dark moments come with the lighter ones. When Penny became too large to fit through the dog door, we built her a shelter in the back yard where she could root to her heart’s content. She shared the enclosure with the tortoises, who also shared their leftovers with Penny. It was a bucolic existence until the day I found Penny lying beside her untouched food. She was running a fever and we knew we would never find a vet who would be willing to get close to this teenage 300 pound sow with sharp teeth and an attitude. We started her on a course of antibiotics and anti-acid medication. From outside her gate, our vet diagnosed the problem as the beginnings of an ulcer. Pigs, like humans, have very sensitive intestines and Penny’s were badly inflamed. For a while, we thought Penny wasn’t going to make it. She was listless, wouldn’t eat, and her temperature was still running high. I spent a number of days sitting in a lawn chair reading stories to her while she lay in a coma-like state rarely moving and never eating. Even the shots my wife had to give her barely evoked a response. I had almost given up hope when the next day her fever broke. The following morning, Penny was up and standing at the gate. The day after that, her appetite returned. Now we are very careful what she eats and we eliminate as much stress from her life as possible. Twice a day, morning and evenings, she is fed and free to roam about the back yard. She visits the horses in their stalls and occasionally plays with the dogs. She roams over to apple tree and wistfully looks up at the young apples waiting for them to ripen. Then she plays with her dog toy that is filled to the brim with Cheerios and waits for me to spray her with the hose.
At over 500 pounds, Penny no longer goes on dog walks, but she enjoys life with her friends the tortoises, horses and dogs. She has been the inspiration for many of my short stories and occasionally I will get her opinion by reading one to her. We never have to worry about burglars breaking into the house through the back yard, but we do have to worry about the holes she digs in the lawn so she can stretch out and wait for her favorite activity . . . the belly rub. I wouldn’t recommend a pig as a pet for everyone, but for us, Penny has been someone very special in our lives.