Rescue & Adoptions

2007 Featured Rescues

Piglet Takes Literal Leap of Faith, Lands at Farm Sanctuary's New York Shelter

The car trailed slowly behind the lone figure, the driver on her phone alerting the authorities to his presence. She tailed the stranger as he turned down a driveway. There, the caller and an officer cornered the wanderer.

He put up a bit of a fight when the two women approached, but that was to be expected: the small, pink piglet was terrified. Prior to this moment, his interactions with humans were traumatic, and he had no reason to believe this time was different. But the women's actions saved his life-and allowed Socks, as the piglet is now called, to make a fresh start at Farm Sanctuary's New York Shelter.

Socks had found himself wandering the streets of Springfield, Mass., after wiggling out of a transport truck passing through town. The possible end points for a truck full of piglets are relatively few: finishing facility or slaughterhouse. Socks chose Door No. 3.

After his capture in Springfield, Socks spent two weeks at the Thomas J. O'Connor Animal Control & Adoption Center, resting up at the companion animal shelter while staff tried to find placement for him.

Option after option was explored and exhausted; the officers were either rejected by potential adopters or worse-put in touch with people who wanted to fatten and kill Socks.

Socks couldn't stay at the shelter indefinitely, and his time was running out. During a last-ditch online search, one of the officers found Farm Sanctuary's Web site at literally the 11th hour: the drugs to euthanize Socks were en route to the shelter.

Finding space in our hearts for Socks was an easy thing to do. Asking Socks to do the same for us was a bit more of a challenge. When the piglet got to our New York Shelter, he still bore the remains of his traumatic first months. Socks was scared stiff around people, cowering as far away from humans as possible. He also had deep bruises behind his ears, telltale signs of the roughness with which he was handled while considered a "food animal." Often, workers will grab pigs by their ears as a way to force them to move, yanking the animals around by their heads.

After being quarantined and receiving a clean bill of health from the vets at Cornell, he moved to the introduction pen of our main pig barn, isolated from the other pigs. But instead of staying in isolation, Socks developed rich friendships with four other new arrivals who were being kept in an adjacent introduction pen: Emily, Ogar, Farley and Dennis. The five piglets were about the same age, and shared the same sad background of abuse. Emily, Ogar, Farley and Dennis were seized from an abandoned residence in Maryland, where they were slated for slaughter by a squatter living on the property illegally. When they got to our shelter, the piglets were riddled with lice, severely malnourished and, like Socks, absolutely terrified.

But you'd never know it now. The quintet is a vivacious bunch, greeting visitors and shelter staff the moment they step into the pig barn. The piglets love human attention; the influence of Socks' new friends is obviously apparent.

Socks has now joined Emily, Dennis, Ogar and Farley in the same pen, learning the ropes of piglethood. He roots around in the field with his new friends, and even got a few life lessons from Dennis, who showed the newbie the proper way to take a mud bath.

Under the tutelage of his porcine peers and the care and affection of our staff, Socks is almost unrecognizable as the fearful, battered piglet who first took refuge at our shelter. It's amazing what a leap of faith and a phone call can do.