Fond memories of an unlikely family pet

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 08/12/2015 (3943 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

“Boonie was such a good pig — the nicest pet ever. She was not a barn pig.”

That’s how my friend Virginia Andrew introduced her pet when I first got acquainted with her. Like me, she grew up on a farm and knows a thing or two about farm animals. But if you’re ever within earshot of her, don’t ever use the expression “Dirty as a pig.”

“Pigs are not dirty,” she says, emphatically. “Pigs use only one corner of a room for a bathroom, in either a barn or a house. They’re clean — I want you to know that — and clever.”

It crossed my mind that if Hollywood stars can own imported pigs for pets, the kind that don’t grow very big, then there must be something to what Virginia says.

With a determined and faraway look in her eyes, Virginia went on with her story:

“Boonie was born small in a litter of many piglets. At feeding-time she was short-changed, for her mother did not have enough nipples to go around and Boonie was too small to put up a fight — or even to reach the feeding station. We called her The Runt. The other piglets would push her aside and suckle to their heart’s content but for Boonie, to use a quote, ‘There was no room at the table.’ Poor Boonie.

“Everyone felt sorry for her. Instead of letting her die, Mother took her into the house and bottle-fed her. We children loved to see this little piggy huddle under the wood stove where it was warm. And she very quickly learned to use the straw pile which Dad put in one corner for her bathroom. Unlike human children, pigs don’t need training — they know.

“I was probably eight,10 years old. She just played with me. She would run around and grunt and I’d chase her, and we’d have lots of fun,” Virginia says. “She loved to be scratched behind the ears, just like a dog. And once a week we gave her a bath — in the galvanized washtub after washing clothes.

“As Boonie got bigger, she was moved out to the garage but she still considered our house her home. But the one thing that frightened her terribly was thunder.

“One day a huge clap of thunder cracked overhead. Boonie flew out of the garage and bumped right into Mother, who was carrying two pails of milk from the barn. Mother was bowled over and the milk all spilled out but Boonie kept right on going. She crawled into her favourite spot under the stove and stayed put.

“Mother came in and sternly announced, ‘That pig has to go!’ I can still hear her.”

Virginia does not remember what happened to Boonie at the end.

“She may have died of old age. I know we didn’t sell her — and we certainly didn’t eat her.”

She considers Boonie an important feature of her growing-up years and a friend  she would not easily forget.

“Boonie was such a good pig.”    

(Internet: The life span of a pig can be anywhere from 5 to 20 years.)

Anne Yanchyshyn is a community correspondent for St. Vital.