Over the stable door: Pig in need of new home after run-in with the law

Beanie, my pal from Wiltshire asked recently if I would consider taking a companion for Johnny. Her sister-in-law’s pig is looking for a new home. I’d hoped she was joking, I know how attached her nephew and niece are to Blossom their pig, but she wasn’t. Beanie’s brother Rupert and his family are in a spot of bother after the Kune Kune was discovered eating from a neighbour’s fruit tree. An escapee farm animal is hardly unusual but Blossom is no ordinary piggy.

Her first home, when just a tiny piglet, was with a couple who thought she was a micro pig. Blossom was there a week before they noticed she was growing rather quickly.

The piglet moved on to her next home, where after three days her truffle hunting had dug up the family garden. So Rupert and his eventer wife Tori adopted the little Kune Kune a year ago.

The piglet arrived to join two Lurchers, a Lab, a Terrier, five hens, 15 horses, a peacock, two Shetland ponies and an aging ewe.

A ring was fitted through Blossom’s nose to solve the truffle hunting problem and the piglet soon fit in well.

I first met Blossom when Felix, Tris and I stayed with Beanie last summer. Tori and the kids called in for lunch, bringing with them the piglet. She travelled sitting on the car seat, ate her lunch from the dog bowl and came swimming in the river with us. She was a sweet little thing but then only half her full size. Now fully grown Blossom lives in the dog kennel, is fully house trained, walks on the lead and sleeps on the sofa surrounded by dogs or children.

Sid and Ruby’s friends adore her, and this summer some local villagers started to feed her tip bites. Like any animal, this resulted in her frequent return.

But last weekend while Tori was at a three-day event she took a call from her work experience pupil who explained she and Sid were sat in a police car on their way to collect Blossom from the village. An elderly lady was aghast to find the pig eating plums in her back garden and had rung the police.

Sid called Blossom out of the lady’s garden and climbed in to the back of the police car followed by the pig. Struggling to realise Blossom was fully trained the policeman was finally persuaded to give them all a lift back to the farm. He warned them if it happened again she would be in serious trouble. The decision was made, Blossom had to move.