Unlikely Friendships - Jennifer S. Holland [27]
POTBELLIED PIG
The potbellied pig can make a great pet because of its intelligence. It can be housebroken and trained to walk on a leash. However, its almost constant desire for food can lead to destructive “rooting,” which is when it uses its snout to dig or explore.
Here’s a dog that’s bred tough enough to hunt boar, bobcats, and bears. But give it a wrinkled-sausage of a piglet, and it turns into the tender motherly type.
One cold night in 2009, Roland Adam of Hoerstel, Germany, discovered a pair of recently born pigs on his twenty-acre property. One had already died of exposure and the other was a squirming handful of pinkish skin, chilled to the core, barely alive. A breeding pair of Vietnamese potbellied pigs—a squatter, denser variety of your standard barnyard porker—had taken up residence on Roland’s land years before; this was not the first time he had come across such gifts. But in this case he had to intervene, sure that the surviving baby would die from cold or hunger, or would be snatched up by foxes before morning. He tucked it under his sweater and brought it to the house he shared with Katjinga the Rhode-sian ridgeback.
The piglet became little Paulinchen, and Roland decided to hand her off to his dog, who had recently weaned her own litter of pups. It was a good move. Katjinga gave the piglet the soft-puppy treatment, keeping her clean and warm. The pig clearly felt right at home, even trying to nurse—though the dog was no longer producing milk. (Roland and his family took care of feedings.)
A few days later, with pig and hound getting along like mother and son, Roland discovered Paulinchen’s birth mother with the rest of her litter, all healthy. He thanked Katjinga for her service and returned the lost baby to the pig family, which eagerly accepted her.
Though the piglet bonded with Katjinga only briefly, it was at a crucial time for the newborn. Back in the porcine life, Paulinchen was a little different from her siblings—a bit tamer and more at ease with other animals. “She knows us and knows Katjinga,” Roland says. “When we see the pigs running around and we call to them, Paulinchen will put her head up and look.” Sometimes she and Katjinga have a quick nuzzle when the pigs come around sniffing out a meal.
Roland attributes Katjinga’s sweet nature to good training (ridgebacks need a lot of socialization) and to the special atmosphere in which they all live. “It is a peaceful area, mostly woodlands,” he says. “When there are hunters around, our farm is like a safe haven where animals come together.”
{MISSOURI, U.S.A., 2009}
The Rabbit and the Guinea Pig
GUINEA PIG
KINGDOM: Animalia
PHYLUM: Chordata
CLASS: Mammalia
ORDER: Rodentia
FAMILY: caviidae
GENUS: Cavia
SPECIES: C. porcellus
RABBIT
KINGDOM: Animalia
PHYLUM: Chordata
CLASS: Mammalia
ORDER: lagomorpha
FAMILY: leporidae
GENUS: Oryctolagus
SPECIES: Oryctolagus cuniculus
Cuteness only gets you so far: occasionally, even the Easter bunny gets dumped. But sometimes pink-nosed holiday rejects in Missouri get taken home by Sheryl Rhodes and her daughter, Lauren. And those rescue rabbits get a sweet deal: the freedom to roam in their own room, loads of attention from their devoted owners, and similarly low-to-the-ground friends to pal around with.
In addition to two rabbits, the Rhodes family had a pair of guinea pigs, Timmy and Tommy. But when Tommy died, the owners decided to try introducing Timmy to the rabbits, which had a ten-by-twelve-foot room with food, litter boxes, and all the fixings for an uncomplicated existence. All three are lovers of crunchy vegetables and are litter trained. It seemed a perfect matchup.
A turtle also inched around the space, though he kept to himself.
“The rabbits had never really bonded with each other,” says Sheryl. “But when Timmy offered his companionship, especially to the one named Baby—the snubbed Easter bunny—we were thrilled. They really warmed up to each other. There were lots of nose touches and nuzzles between them.” If Baby