Rescue Journal

On pigs, donkeys and destructive dogs

Jean  ·  Sep. 30, 2006

I spent the afternoon fixing and installing some shelves in the feed room of the barn, which has now become Petunia's stall. I've never met a pig close up before.....she is quite fascinating. Huge, but fascinating. She voiced her objections to my intrusion in very vocal fashion. Nicole, who was helping me, managed to be at the back of the stall as Ms. Petunia became aggravated enough to try to stand up and move. It occured to us that I would have no trouble outrunning this pissed off piggy, but Nicole would have to get past her first! I do believe Nicole was just a tad nervous.

Fortunately, piggy settled down and let me get on with my work....until the donkeys noticed that the food normally kept on the shelves out of their reach was now sitting in the centre of the barn, in plain sight. They, of course, were sticking their nosey necks over the fence of Ms. Petunia's patio and the sight of the food motivated them to make extremely noisy brays of protest.

"Who the heck does SHE think SHE is that she can stay in the barn while we're fenced out? Stupid pig, doesn't even have the sense to raid the stores while the grabbing is good!....Hey, you, human, give us some of the feed....NOW!"

Ms. Petunia found the donkeys' ruckus just a bit much and decided to fight back with her own version of donkey-speak:

"Shut up you dumb jackasses; you're disturbing my sleep! Gawd knows it's distressing enough to end up in this stupid barn with you stupid animals. I'm uncomfortable, I hurt, and I just want to crawl into my corner and sulk. LEAVE ME ALONE!"

Suffice it to say, the noise was deafening.

I must say, though, that of all the species at SAINTS, the donkeys are my favourite - or at least a strong contender to the dogs. They have such personality; Jenny loves to be cuddled and kissed, even Winston doesn't mind when I hold his sweet face next to mine. And what I discovered today is that donkeys have the most exquisitely soft skin under their chins. It is positively satiny, amazingly soft and silky and warm.

And then there was the interesting activities back at my house. Sometimes a sick dog is a whole lot less trouble than one who is beginning to feel a whole lot better. I had left Isaac in the mud room as he had done so well in there for the past two nights. I came home to discover he had been bored - instead of sleeping he had chewed his way around the door molding on the outside door and again on the inside door. Wood chips were everywhere. And Charley, who was in the kitchen on the other side of the mudroom, had obviously decided to help Isaac escape - let's just say it's a good thing my landlord had already given me permission to repaint the kitchen.

As the for molding around the doorways....I guess I better not put those carpentry tools away just yet.

And it just occured to me...I've fostered two dogs, both sweet, well behaved, wonderfully housetrained fellows. And both of them destroyed a room when I left them for a day. Maybe I should start fostering the rotten dogs - I might lose a few fingers and have more than a few headaches, but maybe my walls and doorways will stay intact!

Comments

Jean

Maybe next time I should give her some of my scotch instead of your wimpy, watery Corona?

Carol

you have no conception of pissed off pig til you trim petunia's toenails. we had to stop cuz she was heading for a stroke.