For all you "in style" readers, you should know that this is just another article about fads and fashion. Unfortunately, the "fashions" mentioned are not articles of clothing or furnishings; they are live, sensitive animals that are now going "out of style" and being dumped in the pounds or abandoned in the streets. They are called pot-bellied pigs, or minipigs, and they are amazingly clever, bright often affectionate, but they are also amazingly stubborn, aggressive, destructive, and above all misunderstood animals.

Over the past year, we have been contacted to help pigs, either by various pounds or upset owners or neighbors. The situations ran from extreme neglect (eight pigs crammed into a ten by ten foot pen, forced to stand ankle deep in their own feces, tossed a handful of food a day and forced to root through the filth to compete for it) to abuse (the pig left chained up in a college student's back yard, starving, repeatedly attacked by neighborhood dogs) to angry owners who failed to research their new pet's behaviors (one pig came to us with her coarse hair stuffed full of upholstery from her owner's sofa, which she had completely destroyed trying to build a nest) to truly upset loving owners who failed to check their local zoning ordinances (it took almost four months for one pig to stop mourning her owners and begin to accept us; the day they left her with us she moaned and moaned as they drove away.) By far, the biggest problem has been not providing these animals with adequate living arrangements. There are (at least) five hard facts to living with a pig:

1. They need to root. Be it your yard or your carpeting, they will constantly root as if on a seek and find mission. Left inside all day they will root up linoleum and pull up baseboards. Locked in a small pen they will root it into a filthy, unhealthy mud hole in a week. Left in a yard, they make no distinction between grass, flowerbeds, or gardens. (They love freshly planted flower bulbs. They live to eat. They cannot be fed in peace with other pets-- they will beat up your dog (or kid) and steal their food. They will chase you (or your dog or kid) and do everything in their power (and they are very strong animals) to take food. They become overweight very easily, which leads to serious health problems, so their diet must be strictly controlled. Commercial pig foods are not adequate-- special mini-pig diets must be purchased and supplemented with plenty of fruits, veggies, grain, and hay.

2. They burrow. Indoors, they need piles of blankets to snuggle under. Outside, they need a roomy shelter packed with straw--enough to bury themselves under. Do not ever, ever invade their bedding space-- this is sacred pig ground.

3. Un-spayed females pigs go into heat once a month. They become very moody, angry, aggressive, and bold. (My husband says--never mind.) They will break out of fences or pens or your back door to go find a mate. Unfortunately, most pig breeders do not warn prospective owners of this, and the pigs do not get spayed at six to eight weeks (when the surgery is easier and affordable).  Also, un-neutered males spray and mark everything in sight. And, of course unaltered pets lead to unwanted litters and the cycle continues.

4. Pigs are not dogs. They do not worship their people. They are very independent and they will come to you for attention when they want it. They have quick tempers when disturbed. They do charge when angry and can bite. However, when frightened they scream bloody murder and can actually stress themselves to death.  Since the vast majority of these pigs top the scales at 100 to 150 pounds (no, they do not grow up to be just forty pounds), it is wise not to anger them.

5. This is not to say they cannot be affectionate. One of a pig's favorite things is a good belly rub. And when we are out in the yard, they will follow us around for hours, just to be near us. Once in a while they will even walk through the woods with us when we are out with the dogs--you cannot help but laugh when watching a very non-athletic animal try to climb over fallen logs or cross streams! They just need to be given the space and the understanding to do things in their own time and way. They really are bright and quick to figure things out.  For example, our pigs eat at seven a.m. and four p.m.  I call them with, "time for supper!"  If I go out at noon and yell "time for supper," they won't even spare me a glance.  If I call them by name, however, they will run over one at a time to see what I have got. They know noon is not "time for supper."

The main point is that like dogs and cats, pigs have been over-bred. They are showing up in commercial slaughterhouses, victims of frustrated owners. The pounds are at a loss as to how to deal with them--they are difficult to euthanize humanely. Adoptions are few and far between once people are presented with the whole picture--and, these animals appear to live ten to fifteen years or more. So it would seem that the time has long passed to stop breeding these animals and instead concentrate on helping the surplus. And to once and for all realize that animals are not a fashion statement--they should not be bred as pets because it seems like a "cool idea."  For all the good little pigs out there brought into this world as a fad, dying in a slaughterhouse or a gas chamber or by a bullet is not a "cool idea" at all.

It ought to be completely out of fashion.