UPDATE: Less than 24 hours after the initial story ran, the Long Beach Animal Care Shelter has found a home for the pigs after receiving hundreds of responses.
“We have peegs!” my friend Dee virtually squealed. Dee volunteers at Long Beach Animal Care Services, so I hoofed it on down to the shelter in hopes of rubbing their bristly little chops.
Besides the quotidian cats, dogs and rabbits, the shelter has hosted numerous snakes, pocket pets and large lizards. They currently have mice. A couple of years ago, someone brought in a horse.
No members of the team that finds homes for pets, however, could recall having pigs. These particular two were reportedly running the streets in North Long Beach. A resident contacted the shelter on Nov. 23 and said that they’d found them and kept them for two weeks to see if the owner could be found, but no one stepped forward.
Shelter staff logged the little guys’ ages at 4 months old. They were dubbed Otis and Lotus and appear to be potbellies. They’re housed in a large dog kennel. Staff takes care of the hog-slopping chores with special pig chow and cleans out the kennel so it doesn’t smell like a sty. Rehoming team members Julie Dyer and Carrie Bain said that the little guys eat like—um, you know—and have doubled their body weight since they arrived. But they said that they aren’t socialized—they’re not aggressive, but they’re as nervous as a couple of sows in a silk-purse factory.
But heavens, they’re cute. When I walked into the cage with Michael Fratino, the shelter’s information specialist, and with head volunteer Ricky, Otis and Lotus manically skittered into a corner—a tight fit for two largish juveniles—and sent the St. Bernard-size plastic igloo sliding diagonally across the floor.
“Kneel down,” Michael told me. “It’ll calm them down.”
Ricky, who’s befriended every dog and a few of the cats and rabbits on the property, was already nose to snout with the pigs and had them literally eating out of his hand. I followed suit and was soon feeding treats to Otis and Lotus.
“They have these cute little eyes—did you see the eyelashes?” Michael asked. Gad, they were adorable.
No one has contacted the shelter to claim Otis and Lotus. Because potbellies can reach a weight of around 200 pounds, they’re going to need more than a poke to pig in. Long Beach prohibits pigs to reside in a residence that’s less than a distance of 100 feet from any neighboring residence. The rehoming team is desperately trying to send Otis and Lotus to a farm rescue something along the lines of Green Acres .
“If anyone out there knows of any rescues that can take pigs, we’ll be grateful,” Dyer said.
If you can suggest any rescues that might take Otis and Lotus, contact the shelter at [email protected]. Otis and Lotus will be happier than pigs in—well, anyway, they’ll oink you very much.