If pigs were considered to be handsome animals, I’ll bet
there’d be more kept as animal companions instead of being viewed as “the other
white meat”
Our current home in Florida
came with a pot bellied pig in the backyard named Audrey. After we closed on
our house, a home was found for her in a petting zoo, but I wonder what it
would’ve been like to keep her. Some people say that pigs are every bit as
smart as dogs. See more delightful pigs as jewelry designs.
In medieval England
pigs were trained as retrievers used in hunting by poachers. Commoners were
forbidden to keep large dogs so that’s how they got around it! In one of my
animal encyclopedias a story is told of an East Indian woman who trained a pig
to herd buffalo-rounding them up like a well trained border collie.
Apparently pigs can learn to sit up and roll over on command
just like a dog! Since they’re able to learn tricks, they’ve sometimes been
used in circus acts. And that old concept that pigs are dirty animals isn’t
true, either. They don’t have many sweat glands so lying in water keeps them
cooled off. When there’s a choice,
they’ll pick clean water over dirty.
Wild pigs live in family groups called sounders. They seem
to have a language and communicate with each other by various squeals and
grunts.
There are pygmy hogs weighing only 13 pounds and European
wild boars at 700 pounds! My personal favorite swine is the wart hog of Africa.
It’s a peaceable animal, preferring to run from an enemy rather than fight. I
love how they look running, oversized head leading the way and tufted tail
sticking straight up in the air.
I have a lot of pig jewelry in my farm animal jewelry line,
but perhaps some day I’ll add a few exotic versions!