Pigby, the biggest pig in the world

I have always fancied having a pet pig.  When I was in my teens I read an article about how intelligent pigs are, and how they could be trained, and were in fact much more lovely than dogs.

I am not a huge fan of dogs.  I mean I would never kick one when it was down, and I feel truly sorry for Andrea’s dog Pip, who had an unfortunate run in with a car and received a broken pelvis and six weeks of cage rest for her pains.  In fact, I would say that Pip is my favourite dog, despite her being a Jack Russell.  She is not one of those barrel shaped, sleek little monsters with docked tails.  No. She is wiry and has huge, fox like ears which hear fleas farting over the county boundary.  She has a wonderfully expressive tail, which wags so hard it can flay the skin off your shins.  My favourite thing about her though is that when she wants to show you how excited she is to see you, and explain to you clearly just entirely how much you must love her, she smiles at you.

I have never met a smiling dog before.  It is hugely entertaining. She lifts her lips delicately and shows you the most perfectly gleaming set of sharp, white teeth, usually as a precursor for rolling neatly onto your foot and allowing you the privilege of counting all her nipples.

She is a delight.

But as I say, most dogs, are not.  Well, to me anyway.

I think Andrea is fairly ambivalent at the moment.  She is currently on a regime of feeding Pip meds which have to be dipped in best chocolate before she will even deign to sniff them, and finding things for her to do within the confines of a small metal cage.  I have offered to go over and read A La Recherche du Temps Perdu to her whilst soothing her fevered brow.  But first I must move house.

Anyway, back to the subject of pigs.

The fashion in pig owning circles always used to be the Vietnamese pot bellied pig.  Even George Clooney had one, and what’s good enough for George is good enough for the rest of us, surely?

These days though, it is all change on the pig front.  Now we must have micro pigs.  These are genetically modified pigs who are designed to only grow as big as say the average chihuahua wearing a tutu.  The micro pig is a boon to the generation of women brought up to revel in large handbags.  Room for your iphone, your credit card, a MAC lipgloss and a porcine companion of your choice.

I have never been a fan of the handbag dog, and I loathe the fashion for dressing dogs as Batman or Fifi and the Flowertots.  I entirely see the point of giving dogs extra protection in freezing weather in the form of functional coats which do not cause them to cringe with shame every time they pass another canine in the street, but this whole turning them into cutesy baby substitutes just makes me bring up a little bit of sick in my mouth, frankly.

I have tried not to be swayed therefore, by the cuteness of the micro pig, but I cannot help it.  They are lovely.  If I had money to burn I would probably buy ten of them and teach them to pull a tiny chariot around the house just for shits and giggles (double standards, moi?).

I might even dress them as Batman.

Do admit.

When mum and I were on our way back from the supermarket yesterday we passed a farm advertising the availability of micro pigs.  I was tempted to stop me and buy one.

Then I remembered the story I read in the paper a few weeks ago, where a woman paid an unspecified farmer several hundred pounds for a micro pig, only to find some weeks later that it was in fact just an ordinary piglet, and it was growing at an alarming rate of knots whilst eating her out of house and home.

I was most amused, but it did beg the question of how the hell you know whether what you’ve bought is a micro pig, or in fact the gargantuan Empress of Blandings, prize winning sow?

And nobody has told me yet how you stop them filling your designer handbag with pig pooh.

Answers on a rasher of bacon.