The Pig

Today we adopted a male mini pig from a student of mine who got him and decided he wasn't getting the life he needed. He comes to us 4 months old with the name Mini, but shall gradually don the title Sir Arthur Mini Barrett Priest Bays. I am really awful at estimating the weight of objects, let alone living creatures, and equally bad at guessing quantitative measurements, so I'll just say he's about as tall and long as our house cats with a belly to his ankles, a tiny little wagging tail, and a stately set of ears. He was quite independent upon his arrival, not paying much attention to us humans. We first introduced him to our two large dogs with each on one side of the fence. Our old lady bloodhound, Stella, wasn't impressed nor threatened by his presence, but our young bull mastiff, Ursa, thought he was just perfect for chasing. Sir Arthur Mini allowed this creature many times his size to race him around the newly fences segment of the barn until the barreled right through a section of welded wire that hadn't been fastened to the barn, merely hooked around the trim. Sir kept running while Ursa suffered the consequence of her too-rowdy behavior enforced by the Dad and Stella looked on unenthusiastically. Ursa spent some time reflecting on her highly reactive behavior inside while Stella, Sir and I took a little walk around the property. The sun quickly set making it just cold enough to necessitate a fire in the wood stove and bring us all near. Sir Arthur Mini was immediately magnetized to the warmth and fell fast asleep. My mom, aunt and uncle came by to meet the new little fella, and had I not picked him up, he might have slept through the whole visit. He was nice and calm when I picked him up and offered him to the others for petting, but squealed in seemingly holy terror when I passed him to my mom. She was slightly offended by his unfavorable response, but Ursa was overjoyed to then receive my mom's full attention. Ursa might be feeling like a bit of a neglected middle child this evening, but I'm confident we have plenty of love to give everyone: dogs, cats, chickens, PIG!