PIG TALES

DOTTY’S TROTTERS - PIG PMS

By Rachael Adams

to my mother’s trouser leg. She follows her everywhere and even sleeps next to her. Sometimes they’ll have a full-on row and bawl at each other for ages about nothing!

Over the years I’ve devised strategies to manage her hormonal rampages. One of her tricks is to stand stock still with her head down and refuse to budge - presumably because she hopes I’m a boar. This poses a problem as she weighs 70 kilos. The only way around it is to off-balance her by lifting her back trotters high in the air and wheelbarrowing her forwards! No small feat either. Another naughtiness is to guard the gate…which I thought was cute until I realised what she was really plotting…

One day Dot’s piggy stars aligned; mam was in a hurry to get to work, and Dot was in a hurry to find a boyfriend. The Toyota Yaris was hurriedly reversed out of the drive at 3 minutes past 3, while pig stood stock still in the middle of the road. An ageing lady with a rickety hip, mam hadn’t quite mastered the wheelbarrow technique. And all the other rickety lot at the hospital where she works as a nurse were waiting for her to get there to sort them out. So, stupidly, mam left the gate open, threw a sausage in it and hoped pig would go home. I was conveniently in Madagascar at the time.

Pig, instead, zoomed off as fast as a pot belly can zoom, right down the street to the roundabout. Which of course was being manned by the Guardia Civil, as is their wont in these trying Menorcan times. I learnt later that they impounded her. That my sister had to borrow someone’s van and pick her up from Es Pinaret. That my mam had to pay 100e…

Now what is the matter with that gissy*? A God-almighty staccato of earsplitting squeals is doing speedy laps of the garden. Dot barges through the door, trotters clacking on the tiles, jumps right up on the couch and bites me! She’s so cute at 6 months old, I love her to bits. We play ‘hidey-under-theblanket’ and she squeals again in disgust then charges off for another lap of the grounds. It’s not her fault she’s a teenager.

When my pot-bellied pig got to six months of age her front bum swelled up and she went berserk. I call her ‘warehog’ today because she’s on her piggy moon days. These consist of two days of screaming and one day of crying and being extra clingy. Her mood changes every second, and pigs can scream louder than a jet engine. My family and the population of western Menorca will have to endure it for the rest of her life.

Unfortunately, pigs never get the menopause. Most mammals don’t. Only humans, pilot, and killer whales do. According to the ‘grandmother hypothesis’, in long-living species like ours with close-knit families, grandmothers forfeit having more children of their own. In this way, they can help care for their grandchildren and there is more food, firewood etc. to go around.

Dot comes into heat every 21 days. A quick check under her tail confirms we’re in for it again. Her fits can be at any time of the day or night. The first two dreadful days she screams like a deranged hoyden; she’ll tear all around the garden and even up flights of stairs to do laps of the roof. Her legs are minute so she never usually goes up stairs. But in times of need, she puts her snout on the step then levers her whole body up in the air and hooks a trotter onto the step! Her third day is spent crying and, for some strange reason, attached

The little pink slip of official paper states “Small Vietnamese pig circulating unaccompanied on a public right of way”. The box saying gender is ticked to female. They got that right!

I thought it was hilarious and was having a right chuckle until a few days later…a few days after the new people moved in next door. The bloody police came round again! “There’s been complaints you’re housing a warthog”. “Eh!?” I gestured to Dot in the yard a few feet behind me. She was mercifully quiet for once, busy eating her dates from the palm trees like butter wouldn’t melt in her snout. They all burst out laughing. Then I, also capable of a rapidly changing mood, mercurial they say, went round to pay the new neighbours a quick visit – funnily enough we’ve never had any trouble since- and Dot has been squealing to her heart’s content.

I sit with her dozing at my feet as I write this. And wonder to myself what considerations most people worry about before acquiring their first-ever pig. Rootling the lawn up? Or raiding the kitchen, perhaps? Probably not piggy PMS.

Spaying must be done before the pot belly appears – otherwise, surgery is too invasive and further complicated by the need for a special anaesthetic. Therefore, most vets in Menorca aren’t willing to do it. And we didn’t find the right one until after she developed her fully formed paunch. If only we’d known what we were letting ourselves in for!

Find a video of her being naughty on her Instagram #dottytrotters

‘Gissy’ is a dying-out Geordie term for pig. I’m Geordie so am going to use it as much as possible throughout my articles.