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Waldo the Pig Spring 1990 – June 1999 Vietnamese pot-bellied pig. Good boy. Mostly. Hi · Waldo's Stats · Tricks · The Hearing · The Couches · The Menu · Before You Buy a Pig · June · Pig People Hi! We're Patricia and Dave Vanmeter, and we live in Boise, Idaho. I'm a school librarian and Dave is a surveyor. For nine years we lived with a pot-bellied pig named Waldo. He died in his sleep this June, and the house is very quiet and very clean and we don't like it one bit. This is not meant to be a sad page. Waldo was the funniest person either of us has ever lived with, including each other. So this is a celebration. I'm doing most of the typing, and Dave is reading over my shoulder and has insisted on adding his two cents, which you'll see in brackets. [Dave: Somebody has to tell it straight.] See what I mean. Waldo's Stats Born Spring 1990, near Nampa Came home July 1990, in a cat carrier, screaming Price $450 [Dave: Which was a lot of money in 1990. Which is a lot of money now.] Color Black, with one white sock on the back left foot Weight we were promised "Thirty-five pounds, forty tops" Weight he arrived at 138 pounds [Dave: More than advertised.] Favorite food Plain canned pumpkin. Also anything you were eating. Favorite place The sunny spot on the kitchen linoleum, 2 to 4 p.m. Least favorite thing Being picked up. Pigs hate it. He'd scream like we were murdering him. Official legal status Pet. See below. We bought Waldo in the summer of 1990, which if you remember was the absolute height of the pot-bellied pig craze. They were on the news. They were in magazines. People were paying ridiculous money for them and everybody had heard they were clean, smart, and stayed the size of a cocker spaniel. Two out of three of those are true. A lot of people's pigs from those years ended up at pig sanctuaries a couple of years later, when they got big and started rearranging the furniture. We were stubborn, and by then we loved him. So he stayed. Tricks Pigs are smart. Smarter than dogs, people say, and I won't start a fight with the dog people, but Waldo learned faster than any dog I ever had, as long as there was a Cheerio involved. Here is what he could do: Sit. Learned in two days. Then he would sit constantly, in front of the refrigerator, hoping. Spin. A slow, dignified circle, like a ballerina who has eaten a ballerina. Ring the bell. We hung a cowbell on the back door at nose height and he rang it to go out. Also to come in. Also at 5:45 a.m. to announce breakfast. Fetch. Sort of. He would push a soccer ball across the yard with his nose and then lie down on it. Open the refrigerator. We did not teach him this one. We bought a child lock in 1993. [Dave: He figured out the child lock in 1994.] Come when called. Every time. If you were holding a carrot. Otherwise he'd think about it. The Great Pig Hearing of 1991 In the spring of 1991, a neighbor a few houses down called the city and reported that we were keeping livestock. Strictly speaking, pigs are swine, and swine were livestock as far as the city code was concerned, and livestock were not allowed on a lot our size. We got a letter. We had thirty days. We were not the only ones. All over the country that year people were fighting city hall over their pot-bellied pigs, and some towns made them get rid of the pigs and some towns changed the rules. We decided to find out which kind of town we lived in. So we went to the hearing. I brought a folder. Dave brought a tie. Our vet, Dr. Ray Mickelson, wrote a letter saying Waldo was neutered, vaccinated, healthy, litter-trained and lived indoors, and that in his professional opinion he was a household pet that happened to be a pig. Our mail carrier wrote a letter saying Waldo had never once barked at her, which was more than she could say for the rest of the street. The kids from across the road drew pictures. I talked for my three minutes. Dave talked for his three minutes, and then for about four more, until somebody tapped the microphone. A man in the back who raised hogs out past the edge of town stood up and said that whatever we had, it wasn't a hog he recognized, and that got a laugh. In the end it was decided that a pig kept indoors as a companion animal was a pet and not livestock, and Waldo got to stay. We took him out for a celebratory plain baked potato. [Dave: I'd like the record to show my extra four minutes are what won it.] The record shows no such thing. The Couch Incidents Pigs root. It isn't bad behavior, it's what their noses are for: they push and dig and flip things over looking for something good underneath. In the yard it's dirt. In the house it's whatever's soft. Couch Number One, 1992. A plaid hide-a-bed we'd had since we were married. We came home from a Christmas party to find Waldo asleep in a nest of couch stuffing in the middle of the living room, with the cushion covers arranged around him like a fort. He had taken the whole thing apart with his nose, very neatly, and was clearly very proud of it. Couch Number Two, 1996. A nice blue one from a furniture store, on sale. By then Waldo was not a small pig, and he had decided the blue couch was his. One Saturday he climbed up on it for his nap, at the same time as Dave sat down to watch the ballgame, and the frame gave out with a noise like a tree falling. Both of them ended up on the floor. Neither of them would admit fault. After that we bought a futon mattress and put it on the floor in the corner, and that was Waldo's bed for the rest of his life. We sat on folding chairs for about a year. [Dave: Worth it.] The Menu People always ask what a pig eats. The answer is "everything," which is exactly the problem. A pot-bellied pig will eat until it can't walk, so you are the one who has to say when. This is what Waldo got, on the advice of Dr. Mickelson: Mini-pig pellets from the feed store, measured out twice a day. Measured. Not scooped. Vegetables, lots of them: carrots, lettuce, celery, zucchini from the garden (we always had too much zucchini, and finally somebody wanted it). A little fruit as a treat. An apple slice could get him to do anything. Plain popcorn, no salt, no butter, on movie night. We are told this is spoiling. What he didn't get: dog food or cat food (too rich, and he'll get fat), salty people food, candy, or anything greasy, no matter how hard he stared. Your vet will tell you the same, and you should listen to your vet and not to the pig. Before You Buy a Pig We get e-mail every week from people thinking about getting a pig. Here is our honest advice. We loved Waldo with our whole hearts, and we'd still tell you to think hard. 1. They get big. Whatever weight the seller tells you, don't believe it. Most pot-bellied pigs end up somewhere between 80 and 150 pounds. A pig who is "only" 100 pounds is still a hundred pounds of animal walking around your kitchen. 2. They root. Lawns, flower beds, carpets, couches (see above). If you can't stand a torn-up yard, you can't stand a pig. 3. They're smart. That sounds like a good thing, and it is, but a smart animal that's bored will find something to do, and you won't like it. They need things to do and people to do them with. 4. They need trims. Their hooves grow and have to be trimmed, and boys grow tusks, even neutered ones, which have to be trimmed too. Waldo had to be sedated for his tusk trims. Find a vet who will see pigs before you bring one home. Not every vet will. 5. They can be litter-trained. This part is true and wonderful. Waldo used a big low box with pine shavings in the laundry room until he learned to ring for the yard. Spay or neuter, though. An intact boar smells, and a girl pig comes into season every three weeks or so and is not her best self. 6. They live a long time. Twelve to eighteen years isn't unusual. Waldo only got nine, and that was too short. This is not a pet for the next year or two. It's a pet for the next fifteen. 7. Call city hall first. Trust us on this one. June Waldo's hips had been bad for a couple of years. Dr. Mickelson said it was arthritis, which a lot of big pigs get, especially if they were heavier than they should have been, and he was. He had pills for it, and Dave built him a little ramp over the back step so he didn't have to climb. This spring he slowed down a lot. He slept more, and he'd get tired just walking around the yard, and Dr. Mickelson listened to his chest and told us his heart was getting tired too. We knew what that meant. We'd been talking about when it would be time to make the hard decision, and dreading it. As it turned out, Waldo made it for us. One morning in June we came into the laundry room and he was gone, on his futon, curled up the way he always slept, with his nose in the blanket. He looked comfortable. We are very grateful for that. Dave's brother has some land out in the country, and Waldo is buried out there under a cottonwood tree, near a creek, where there's plenty of mud and nobody will ever call the city. [Dave: I miss the big guy. I miss that bell at quarter to six. There. I said it.] If you loved a pig too, go look at Pig People. When we put this page up, people started writing to us about their own pigs, and now there's a candle for each one. Friends of Waldo since July 1999: Write to us about your pig: [email protected] Last updated September 19, 1999