Piggo is taking on the world.
Finally, after a year and a half on this earth, Piggo is control. He is exploring, indulging himself, discovering new places.
And perhaps, just perhaps, he’s searching for Mrs. Piggo, whether he realizes that specifically or is just pushed ahead by some blind innate instinct we all have for companionship.
Piggo and I made acquaintance on a Tuesday evening in my yard. I had been mentally prepared for this, as someone who lives up the road messaged me that there was a pig in my yard.
The last time there was a pig loose on our road, it wandered here and there for a few days before meeting an unfortunate end through an encounter with a truck on the road. I didn’t want this poor innocent creature to face that fate.
I spotted him as I was getting out of the house. Piggo wouldn’t win any beauty contests, that’s for sure. As far as size, he came up to my knee.
I went in quickly and grabbed all I could find easily – a tomato and two slices of bread. Back outdoors, he and I gingerly approached each other.
We danced around my yard and the neighbor’s yard for about an hour. The pig approach just enough to eat a chunk of tomato I tossed on the ground in front of him, and even let me touch him once, but I could never catch him. I even got out a net and a rope, but Piggo is shaped like a wide torpedo and there didn’t seem any way to lasso him.
I went over to the only neighbor I saw outside, a man new to the neighborhood. He has always been gentlemanly and put out the offer that he’d help if we ever needed anything, so he probably was expecting me to say I had car trouble or something.
For about an hour we chased that pig in loops around the yard and hayfield and even into the woods, trying to corral him into the chicken coop, but that pig outran and outsmarted us.
In the course of that valiant effort, the helpful neighbor lost his phone and a $100 tool, both of which had been in his pockets, in the hayfield. He only found his phone.
Three other neighbors came out to help, and eventually the pig ran into the chicken coop, where I left him with water and food.
Then I had to leave for Richmond for meetings the next day. I arrived at my hotel at 1:15 a.m. Whew.
The next morning a neighbor texted me that Piggo had gotten out, and later in the day, Piggo’s owners were found. Meanwhile, neighbors said, Piggo had been hit by cars two separate times but each time managed to wobble away.
That next evening, the owners and the wildlife-catching team they had hired were stationed in my yard, hunting down the pig. It turned out that Piggo was a pet pig who, the owners admitted, probably should have been taken to be neutered a while back; he’d been getting restless and wanting to roam.
Piggo kept giving the slip. His cage and food and water are set up in my yard still, but last we heard, he had made his way down the road and was hanging out in the pastures and paddocks of Martin Stables.
“He’ll be fine,” said Horace Martin, who had seen Piggo around but hadn’t had any contact with him. “He ain’t hurting nothing.”
So now Piggo continues his search – for love? For freedom? To see what the world has to offer?
Fortunately, I haven’t seen him hit on the side of the road.
If you encounter Piggo, send me a Facebook message or email me through this newspaper and I’ll pass on the message.
