"Rescued piglet Wiggles won't become pork"Wiggles got a lucky break.
The piglet broke her leg, likely after falling off a livestock truck on Highway 401. But she was rescued and will end up at a good home instead of an abattoir.
Good Samaritan Brian Bowes was on his way to work in Cambridge on Monday morning when he saw the piglet lying by the side of the road, "shivering like crazy." There was an accident up ahead, Bowes says, so he was doing about 40 to 60 km/h in the fast lane, westbound on Highway 401 near Mavis Rd.
Other drivers slowed down to gawk, but no one stopped. He did. He pulled over, bundled the piglet into his car and turned around. Forty-five minutes later, he was downtown, handing her over to the Toronto Humane Society on River St.
"I'm a regular animal lover," says Bowes, adding that he handled the piglet despite the swine flu scare.
Bowes didn't see a livestock truck, but there's no question in his mind that the piglet had fallen off one. "She was really, really beat up – lots of cuts, scrapes and gashes," says Bowes, a 31-year-old computer network engineer who lives in Toronto. At the animal shelter, vets gave the dehydrated piglet water through a syringe, and she wiggled her backside – hence the name Wiggles. The cuts and bruises on her feet, head and backside were treated.
But her leg is broken at the knee and the bone will have to be pinned. Wiggles is set to have surgery this week.
"She's doing better," says Ian McConachie, senior communicator at the Toronto Humane Society. Yesterday, he saw her up and moving around in her cage, and eating on her own.
McConachie says a farm pig hasn't been brought to the animal shelter for about 30 years.
It's been about 15 years – when potbellied pigs were popular – since staff tended any pig, he adds.
The society is not looking for the farm Wiggles came from or the truck she fell from.
"The tragedy is that this pig probably won't even be missed," McConachie says. "It's just a commodity."
After surgery, the now 2- to 3-month-old Wiggles will recuperate at the shelter for six to 12 weeks. But this little piggy, who now weighs about 5.5 kilos, is not going to market. She's moving to a petting zoo, animal sanctuary or hobby farm, McConachie says.
"She's not going back into the factory farm chain and becoming food. She's been through enough."
i wish wiggles all the best!
but this had better not turn out like the last cute animal story that captured my heart... do you hear me?!?
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