Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Pigs, of course


Now that i am home, without work interfering with my pigs lives i can let them out every day. The pigs when i am away from the acreage are kept in piggy paddocks for safe keeping from coyotes or dogs. So Roscoe is let out first and away he goes and then we join in a lovely walk around the acreage. It makes me laugh when i see his tail wag when he is snout deep in dirt going after the roots of a young black berry bush. Good job Ross , good job!!

Oh and i had a surprise visit bearing apples on the week-end, my two good friends Maggie and Bob who now live on Texada Island. It is so nice to see really good friends and the pigs were happy as well. Don't you just love the smell of Gala's.

Today Mom and I had set the date to deworm all the pigs. A foul tasting treatment and one we would hide in those chocolate covered marshmallow cookies. It took and hour to prepare the amount of cookies we would need injecting each one, one ml at a time. That way we would feed the pigs the amount of cookies required for there weight. Baby Jack would only need one but the likes of Danny would get six so we needed a lot of cookies.

We used to do this in peanut butter sandwiches but the pigs caught on so we thought these cookies would do the trick. So out Mom and I went and handed a cookie to Danny who gave it the wrinkled nose treatment , spit it out and TOLD the others and none of them would have anything to do with it. We moved on to the next pen and so and so on and we did get them all done. But not without returning to the kitchen adding maple syrup to some and when that failed made jam sandwiches and it took two hours but they are all done. Stay tuned for a repeat of this care giving 10-14 days from now. I think we will start with the jam sandwiches.

Paula who started here as a volunteer and who i have come to love as a dear friend said good bye to one of hers dog children's today. Patch who lived as a puppy mill Mom made up for all her caged days when she moved in with this family. The love and life she found with Paula and Jim and of course her canine pal Kira were days of long walks, big smiles and under the covers at night with her Mom. She was a snuggle bunny of a dog and leaves behind a mourning family but today she fly's. Light a candle for Patch, in her memory and honor. And thank you for giving me that loving the last time we were together Patch , I will never forget you either.

Tomorrow Shaw Cable will be here at 11:30 to do a little interview with the pigs and I. Hopefully I will come off somewhat intelligent as every media attention we get spreads the word about pigs needing to be rescued too.

And if there are any animal advocates, Farm Sanctuary lovers , social workers and Doctors out there we need to talk, I have a brilliant idea!

Well its almost ten and i got to eat but i will say I am so glad Spring is in the air!!!

1 comment:

Jean said...

First, my condolences to Paula and family - Patch was a lovely dog. Paula, may memories comfort you. Her spirit is always with you.

As for the worming....oh yes, fun and games. Pigs are sometimes too smart for their own good. I can't remember what Ellen and I finally hit on to get the dewormer into the piggies here last time - I know they figured out the PB sandwiches pretty darn quickly.

Good luck with the TV filming!!!!