Prodigal pig returns: 200-pound Ellie spent two months on the loose
Bonnie Weaver is happy to have her precocious pet home after fearing she was lost or eaten
Ellie the prodigal pig made the return trip home this week after being on the lam for two months. She arrived at her Carleton County home on Tuesday, much to the joy of her owners.
"When the pig showed up it was almost like a kiss from heaven," said Bonnie Weaver of Benton, a 27-kilometre drive southwest of Woodstock.
Ellie disappeared while Weaver and her husband, Luke, were away at a funeral. When they came home, they looked around the property and in the woods for their sweet sow but couldn't find her.
Weaver was worried that a bear had eaten Ellie or that the 200-pound pig had become too lost to find her way home.
"But I never gave up hope," Weaver said. "I always looked to see if she was in her favourite spots."
On Tuesday afternoon, the horses in the field seemed to be reacting to a familiar friend.
"Right away my husband said, 'I bet that's Ellie,' and then he said, 'Bonnie, it is Ellie,'" said Weaver.
"I come out of the kitchen and sure enough stood there, and there she was, coming up through the pasture with six horses all around her."
When asked, Ellie declined to comment on where she'd been for two months, except to provide a few snorts, leaving the story up to the imagination.
Weaver's best guess is that the pig was in heat and looking for a mate, and her hormones led her far from home.
Ellie became part of the Weaver family when Bonnie's daughter came home from working in Alberta with a surprise. Weaver had her guesses as to what that might be, but she didn't expect a pig.
"I hadn't seen her all summer long," Weaver said of her daughter. "So as a mother, I'm thinking, 'Oh my goodness, the surprise. I bet she's met this guy out there and she's going to bring him home and she's going to introduce him to the family.'
"So I've got all of these things going through my mind, and when the pig came off of the plane in a little cat carrier I thought, 'Pig is good.'"
Instantly, Ellie, a piglet at the time, became part of the family. Weaver said Ellie actually thinks she's a dog, as those are the animals she spends a lot of time with. Ellie is also very clean, despite the stereotype.
"They definitely do make good pets, but you've got to have some space to let them be outside of things. If you live in the city it's just not going to work."
Weaver said Ellie is actually a micro mini pig, and her parents were no more than 40 pounds each. But Weaver said Ellie has been sneaking extra snacks and cleaning up after the horses feed.
Weaver thinks if there is one positive from Ellie's journey, it's that the pig lost 30 pounds out on her own, including some of the fat that hung over her eyes.
"She was so heavy and overweight that you know she could hardly see out of her eyes," said Weaver. "And there was a terrible heavy wrinkle over her shoulders, and … her legs were just as heavy as they could be.
"Now she can see out of her eyes and she just looks normal. So it was a blessing in disguise as far as that for her health."
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