Moon over Martinborough

Lucy on a hot day

It wasn’t until Rick went away to the States and I had a week off that Rick’s beloved pet pig, Old Lady Lucy, started having trouble.

The first sign was when she showed no interest in a piece of bread. This is a bit like a fierce lioness losing interest in a limping wildebeest.

Lucy’s previous owners regularly fed her day-old donuts, but at our place the occasional piece of bread is as close as she gets to the glory days of her misspent, donut-eating youth.

As a result, she usually snatches bread up. When she wouldn’t even lift her head to eat the bread I’d laid next to her, I was worried.

It was hot, and the following day she collapsed by the pond. In spite of the expression, “sweat like a pig,” pigs don’t have functional sweat glands. Wallowing is how they keep cool. Yet Lucy had fallen awkwardly about two meters away from the water. When she tried to move closer, her legs buckled. Although she was under shade, she was burning up, so I sponged her down to cool her.

Lucy is 14 years old now, which is very old. I leaned over and whispered in her ear. “Look, Lucy. If anything happens to you while Rick’s away, I’ll be in serious trouble. So pull it together.”

The next morning I was relieved to find her back up in her pig house, sleeping happily next to her young, studly boytoy, Kowhai. But then she took a turn for the worse.

Later that morning I found her flailing in the hot sun, suffering from diarrhea and unable to use her back legs. Flies were swarming around her mouth and eyes. She was seriously heat stressed.

I sponged her down again, but how do you move a giant pig out of the sun? Even without the donut diet Lucy is 150kg. I felt utterly helpless.

Reinforcements arrive

In my world, when you don’t know what to do, you call the neighbors. Before I could say ‘extreme pig emergency’ John and Aussie Bronwyn were in the top paddock putting a temporary shelter around Lucy to keep the sun off her. John carefully sprayed Lucy with a fly repellant you use on sheep.

Apricots from our trees

Of course, shortly after they left Lucy stumbled out from under the shelter and collapsed again in the sun. I moved and rebuilt the shelter on my own. This happened five times over the next several hours. Our other neighbors, Jim and Kiwi Bronwyn, also showed up to help, but I was at my wits’ end.

That’s when I called our friend Naya, who happens to be both trained vet and pig farmer. She came swooping down out of the sky like a superheroine, brandishing magical white powders and pink liquids.

Under Naya’s wise instruction, we used two old towels to create a sling and heave Lucy into the hayshed. Next Naya gave me intricate instructions on the over-the-counter treatments she’d brought, and told me I had to call the official vet to get prescribed medications – an anti-inflammatory and an antibiotic.

Thus began a long saga involving three more vets with differing opinions and several after-hours consultations. When I got the drugs, they involved needles. Thankfully Aussie Bronwyn came back to shoot Lucy up. Then Tracy came by, who leases our paddocks now, and she offered molasses and glucose to put in Lucy’s water. Several other local pig lovers showed up too. We practically had a team of specialists working around the clock to care for that old sow. I can only hope I get such good treatment when I’m old and decrepit.

Let me remind you that getting a geriatric kunekune was Rick’s bright idea. I was opposed. And where was Rick now? On the other side of the planet. That’s where. Typical.

Hayshed hospital

Lucy spent the next two days lying around the hayshed, barely eating and drinking. Kowhai kept watch just outside the hayshed gate, even in the rain, always near her. Twice a day I gave her oral medication by syringing it into her mouth, and I mixed all sorts of things into her water.

Hydrangea in the backyard

Then, one afternoon, I found her shaking with terrible spasms. I sat down next to her for a while, petting her. She moaned. The following morning she was even worse. She’d been spasming for nearly 24 hours, and terribly sick for a total of 5 days. I called the vet. I had to put Old Lady Lucy down.

In the moments before the vet arrived, I sat next to Lucy and talked to her. I’d reluctantly grown fond of that old pig. I told her I was sorry that she was suffering, but it would be better where she was about to go.

“Just think of it,” I said. “You’ll get donuts every day.”

It’s always a heartbreaking thing to lose a pet, whether it be dog, cat, pig, or aardvark. Pets have a mysterious way of bringing us joy. We learn things from their wholehearted and unselfconscious way of being in the world. I was very sad to say goodbye to that old girl.

Lucy picked up her head and started sniffing the air.

“What’s that?” I said. “Is Death here?”

At that moment my mobile phone rang. Liz the vet was up at the house and couldn’t find me. In the time it took me to walk to the house and back to the hayshed with Liz, Lucy was up and moving. She was grunting through the gate at Kowhai and sniffing around for food.

“I’m not ready to go yet,” the old girl seemed to be saying. “You keep that vet away from me.”

Liz told me, “She seems so well, I’d hate to put her down,” and we agreed to wait.

Haybales in the side paddock

Lucy was a miracle pig. Over the next two days, she got better and better. By the time Rick got back from the States, she was up and about and acting like the entire episode never happened.

“What’s all the fuss about?” Rick said. “Lucy’s fine.”

It was all I could do not to slap him.

Nobody knows what made Old Lady Lucy sick. The heat? Something she ate? Pining for Rick? And nobody knows how much longer she’ll be with us. A week? Several years?

All I know is that I spent my entire week off worrying and taking care of Rick’s pig. But after all, that’s how we are when we love our pets, isn’t it?

_________

The Lucy stories

1. Rick wants a pig
2. Bringing home Old Lady Lucy
3. Boytoy for Old Lady Lucy
4. Is the Old Lady Pregnant?
5. One sick pig
6. Donuts every day

This entry was posted on Friday, January 13th, 2012 at 11:56 am and is filed under Death, Neighbors, New Zealand, Pet kunekune pigs. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.