Matt Whyman - The Unexpected Genius of Pigs

9. What Pigs Can Teach Us About Parenting Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

10. The Companion Pig Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

Acknowledgements Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

About the Publisher Конец ознакомительного фрагмента. Текст предоставлен ООО «ЛитРес». Прочитайте эту книгу целиком, купив полную легальную версию на ЛитРес. Безопасно оплатить книгу можно банковской картой Visa, MasterCard, Maestro, со счета мобильного телефона, с платежного терминала, в салоне МТС или Связной, через PayPal, WebMoney, Яндекс.Деньги, QIWI Кошелек, бонусными картами или другим удобным Вам способом.

1

A simple lesson

Keeping pigs taught me a great deal about myself, and very little about the animals in my care. In the years that Butch and Roxi were part of my family, I discovered that my patience could be stretched almost limitlessly. I also realised that things I had considered to be important didn’t really matter, like flowerbeds and much of the fencing surrounding the garden. As a father of four young children, I was no stranger to hard work and responsibility. Even so, no amount of nappy changing could have prepared me for the muck I faced on a daily basis. The experience brought me closer to my wife, Emma, in the never-ending challenges presented by our porcine pair, but not once did we give up on them.

Above all, for all the trials, escape bids and destruction, I learned about love.

Life before pigs

Looking back, I have only myself to blame. We live in the West Sussex countryside, in a brick and tile house on the edge of woods. There is a garden where our children used to like to play, and neighbours on each side. For some time, I’d kept chickens in an enclosure at the back. The area was defined by a picket fence that crossed behind a small apple tree and attached to the front corner of the shed. In effect, it was a paradise for poultry. My six-strong posse poked and scratched about in an abundance of space, and always sailed to the gate to greet me whenever I wandered down to see them.

When a fox attack put paid to all but one of my flock, it prompted me to ask what animal might deter a repeat visit. What I had in mind was something that would send out a clear signal, like a crocodile, a pool of piranhas or an angry bull. I wasn’t being serious when I suggested a pig, though I’d heard they often spooked foxes. For Emma, it was reason enough to go online and do some research. When she found a type that could supposedly snuggle inside a handbag, it was a done deal.

‘These aren’t normal pigs,’ she pitched to me. ‘They’re mini pigs.

To be fair to Emma, she had done her homework. It’s just that at the time this amounted to trawling through a raft of irresistible pictures of impossibly small pigs in baby booties, and scant hard facts about what set them apart from your everyday swine. All she could do was take the word of the few breeders that she found who specialised in minipigs. According to them, pint-sized porkers grew just 12 inches high, which is roughly the same as a Terrier. They were smart, child-friendly, easily trained and happy to live under the same roof as us.

Emma did tell me a lot more about them, but I had stopped paying attention when she delivered the clincher by assuring me I’d barely notice them. By then, my family were totally sold. A run-of-the-mill piglet costs about £30. For an eight-week-old minipig, you’re looking at anything between £500 and £1,000. Despite the hit, Emma believed it would be an investment. ‘The children will remember this,’ she said. Looking back, she wasn’t wrong. It’s just that I don’t think the experience shaped their lives in the way she had hoped.

Butch and Roxi

The new arrivals pitched up in a cat basket. In a bid to butter me up, perhaps, Emma nominated names I’d once proposed for two of our children only to have them dismissed out of hand. As per the breeder’s sales pitch to Emma, they were no bigger than kittens. Perfectly pig-shaped and honking in a high pitch, my first thought was to check their bellies for battery compartments. They just seemed too good to be true. Over the course of their first weekend with us, the sibling pair were effectively magnets for the attention and affections of Emma and the children. As I worked from home, writing books in an office at the front of the house, I used the opportunity to slip away to the typeface.

Then Monday arrived. With the children at school, dropped there by my wife on her way to the office, the task of looking after Butch and Roxi fell to me.

From that moment on, the gap between pig-keeping fantasy and reality opened up like a chasm. From where I was sitting, in front of the computer trying to write for a living, they drove me to distraction. Thoughtfully, for the pigs at any rate, Emma had decided to locate their little ark in my office so that I could watch over them. In a sense, that’s exactly what I did, spending more time peering over my shoulder at a string of interruptions than facing the screen.

Contrary to popular belief, pigs are hygienic creatures. They’ll create a toilet as far from their sleeping quarters as they can. In our house, despite the litter tray Emma had installed in my office, that meant trotting into the front room and slipping behind the television in the corner. Noise-wise, they weren’t too bad. In fact, the snuffling and grunting was really quite soothing as I worked. It was only when the phone rang that the atmosphere soured. It might have been something to do with the frequency of the ringtone, or perhaps pigs just like a singsong. Whatever the case, Butch and Roxi would respond by squealing away. It’s tough enough trying to come across as a professional in a home environment. Now, it sounded as though I was working out of a barnyard.