Valentines Ode to Luigi and Smudge

Because love comes in many shapes and sizes

We have two pet pigs, Luigi and Smudge, who live in a fenced off area of our back garden. They are Kune Kune Pigs, a type of pig originally from New Zealand breed, and are brothers. They are not big pigs in the world of pigs- their backs come up to just above my knee caps. They are furry- short snouted, big eared, and coloured back and white.

I say ‘we’ have the pigs, it’s more the pigs who have us. Have me, to be precise. Obviously the pigs are utterly reliant upon their human caretakers for their food and welfare. The responsibility of this, the routine, the day after day care, rain or shine, frost or sun, mud or dust, lies firmly on my shoulders. They must be fed, given straw, mucked out, (removal of their pig poo) every day, regardless of the weather. So it is they who have me.

Luigi and Smudge came to live with us when they were 12 week old piglets. They will be 3 years old this coming March 2025. I had always said that if I ever ended up living in an environment where it could be done, and the space was there, I would try and acquire a pet pig. After all, I always felt, who needs a dog when you could have a pig?

I am a woman of impulse. I act, and think after. I defend this way of doing things by reminding myself that if I didn’t behave this way I would never do anything as I would think about it too much and then decide not to do it. I decided three years ago that pigs would enhance all of our lives- that the kids would learn how to take responsibility for another being, and that minding the pigs would become part of all of our routines. We’d play with them, bond with them, take them for walks, the fun we’d have! I had it all mapped out.

I went about researching all breeds of pigs in general and soon discovered that my initial plan- to adopt a rescue pig- might not be feasible. Pigs are highly intelligent and emotional creatures. They dream, play, sing to their babies. Rescue pigs are not pigs that escaped out of a factory farm- that practically never happens- rather they are usually pets people have bought as piglets whom have then grown bigger than their owner anticipated. Often they have been owned by people who had good intentions but don’t know how to look after them properly and they have suffered neglect, either through not having enough space, overfeeding, underfeeding, the list goes on. Having had Luigi and smudge in my life for nearly 3 years now I can very much see how this could happen. Rescue pigs, just like rescue dogs, can be traumatised and difficult to manage as a result of their past life. Knowing very little in general about pigs, and with a job and 3 kids, I had enough sense to recognise I had neither the time or knowledge to manage a traumatised pig, or any traumatised rescue animal for that matter.

I researched breeds and discovered Kune Kune pigs, a relatively small, easy going pig, who apparently were friendly and could live adequately in the space we had to offer. The next thing to think about was- to host one pig, or pigs in the plural sense. Pigs are highly sociable creatures and to get one pig would mean a lonely pig. So two it was.

I went and visited the farmer whom I’d made contact with whose Kune Kune pig had just had a litter of babies. He asked me which ones I wanted, so he could keep them for us until they would be old enough to leave their mum. I looked at the 9 tiny squealing furry beings scrambling and crawling over their grunting mum, who looked wrecked, understandably. They all looked the same to me. I said I would take two of the boys, thinking vaguely that to look after girl pigs meant the very small future chance of baby pigs, a chance I definitely did not want to take.

When the piglets arrived at our house 9 weeks later they were still ridiculously small, furry and cute, tumbling about, hugely curious and emitting high pitched baby oinks. We fashioned a shelter for them out of an old plastic water carrier and fenced off an area of the corner of our garden, under the crab apple trees we had inherited when we moved. So far, so good with our pig journey.

teeny piglets Luigi and Smudge

Why pigs you might ask? Why not a dog, or a tortoise? My Mum always loved pigs and told stories of growing up with pigs at home, pigs whom her Dad kept, to be fattened and sold each year. I remember small pig ornaments dotted about in my childhood home. Pigs were just generally accepted as being animals of note in our house.

Once installed in the back garden Luigi and Smudge busied themselves eating, playing and sleeping. Going for walks with dog harnesses on. Getting hugs and playing with the kids. And growing. Within 6 months they were over twice the size they were upon their arrival.

Within a year it became clear they were going to need a new house. I recruited a local handyman and builder, who had a farm and animals of his own. He understood immediately what was required, thankfully, as I did not really, and he proceeded to build a strong, sturdy wooden framed shed, clad in aluminium, with a concrete base. He fashioned a door that could open fully for us humans to enter, but with a smaller opening cut into it up to knee level, which we affixed tough clear plastic strips to, kind of like a heavy industrial freezer door, so that Luigi and Smudge could go in and out themselves, and have a cozy dry shed to sleep in. This shed has saved us, quite literally. The reason we have needed saving is because of Irish weather. Specifically the weather in the west of Ireland, where we live. Specifically again, because of the constant rain.

It rains here 65 to 75% of the time. Living near the west coast, the Atlantic winds sweep in, carrying moisture laden clouds, which then, upon encountering our mild temperatures, proceed to empty themselves upon us. A sunny day in these parts is to be remarked upon.

We live across the road from a turlough, which is a temporary lake, one that rises and falls depending on the surrounding water levels. The turlough across our road never goes away. The ground in our higgledy piggledy garden doesn’t drain well, so we constantly look out the window at swampy marshy pools of water with bits of grass poking up dejectedly through it. The ground inside the pigs pen turns into a lake of mud from October to April each year. A lake which we would watch the pigs pick their way through, prompting me to arrive at the realisation that they did not actually like mud. And yes, the cliché is that pigs love to roll around in mud. Actually, no. Only if the weather is dry, and somewhat warm, will our pigs avail of mud. Their dry skin gets relief from the warm wet mud, hence why they roll about in it. But if one lives in a muddy environment nearly all year round, it loses its novelty, even for a pig.

Which was why I found myself after a second wet and muddy winter, on the phone procuring a couple of tonnes of mulch- which is a bark like material made of shredded vegetation and trees. We spread the mulch, with difficulty, over the ground of the pig pen, in order to soak up the mud and to create a carpet of spongy bits of wood. This worked great for a while, but the relentless rain and the increasing heaviness of Luigi and Smudge meant that within a year the mulch had all but disappeared, trampled down and absorbed into the mud.

And so it was that I then found myself at the building supply centre, purchasing a car boot full of patio concrete tiles. My plan was to lay down a makeshift concrete slab path for my muck avoidant friends to use to travel from their nice dry straw filled shed to their feeding area, enabling them to keep their trotters mud free. I lifted and heaved the concrete slabs into position, and after a second trip to the building supply centre to purchase more slabs, and more grunting and heaving (from me) I had triumphantly succeeded in laying a pathway, which the brothers obliged me by immediately using. If you had told me 10 years ago that happiness lay in laying patio slabs for a pathway for my pet pigs to stay muck free I would have been dubious.

I could write endlessly about the pigs. About their personalities, their routine, their fastidious toilet habits and their bed making, their likes and dislikes, their favourite treat food (peanut butter sandwiches in the winter, ice lollies in the summer). How they are always happy to see me. How on a bad day, when I’m stressed about my precarious freelance income, or finding parenting overwhelming, their grunts of greeting and affectionate snout rubs against my legs reminds me of what’s important in life.

Luigi on right, Smudge on left, Pig shed in background

We have grown used to how people react when they meet the pigs for the first time. We watch them go through the same cycle of reactions. They marvel at their size and their sheer presence. The pigs, for their part, usually grunt shyly in the presence of new people, and are quiet and watchful.

The visitors ask, so… they are pets? You are not going to..?

Yes, they are pets and no, we are not going to eat them, I confirm.

So they just live here? Correct, I re-iterate. We mind them. We take care of them.

Why? Because we love them. You know, like you do for your dog or cat.

Are they expensive No, they eat vegetables, grass and rolled oats and barley.

Are they smelly? No, they are very clean and they have specific toilet areas that they use.

We watch our visitor struggle to take this in, to recalibrate their world view. If the visitor is emboldened, they will reach in and scratch the pigs furry warm ears, which forces them to see the pigs in even more of an emotional light, like they would their dog, and we see them struggle again to reconcile themselves with this new experience of an animal they usually associate with dinner. Now is probably a good time to mention we are a plant based house, my husband and I are vegan and the kids are vegetarian. Somewhat of an anomaly here in rural Ireland.

Right now Luigi and Smudge are on holiday, about a 10 minute drive away. They have gone to stay in my husband’s Father’s field. He wanted them to come stay for a practical purpose- to root up the grass in his field so he could then replant it. For those of you who are not familiar with pig habits, they have an extraordinarily good sense of smell and they like to use their snouts to root, or dig up the ground (if they live in such a place where there is ground to dig up) to search for tasty things to eat and just generally, because they love rooting. It’s in their nature. Our garden, never a contender for House & Garden Magazine, is pitted throughout with small pig trotter imprints and dotted with brown, grassless areas from the aforementioned rooting. These features, along with the endless precipitation and marshy puddles, make the garden more of a feat of endurance to venture into rather than a space one might place ones deckchair.

Therefore the offer of a trip away for Luigi and Smudge felt like a good idea. They would get to run about in a larger space than usual, eat lots of grass (which they also love to do) and root up the ground. Our poor garden would also get a bit of a reprieve.

But the thing is, I miss them. I miss Smudges habit of pushing himself against your leg for a scratch and then keeling sideways over onto his side to get a belly rub. I miss Luigi, bigger and heavier than his brother, answering me with an oink as I chat nonsense to him. I miss how they fight and mess with each other and then sleep side by side, nestled in their straw. While they are away it is true that I have appreciated the break from feeding, mucking out, exercise supervising and visiting (the pigs get lonely if we don’t spend time with them) but the thing is I feel responsible for them and I worry about them. I worry they are bored, or not getting enough affection, or might miss us.

Sometimes the responsibility of managing their needs weighs heavily- you can’t send them to a kennel if you are planning a holiday for example. We have to call in a litany of favours to get them looked after if we want go away. I often question why I embarked on this pig journey, especially as a healthy pig can live for 15-20 years. People find this age span remarkable, because obviously most pigs don’t get to live beyond 6 months.

Mostly I feel hugely fortunate to have Luigi and Smudge in my life. I have learned so much from them, as has my family and they ask for so little from us. Belly rubs, affection, and regular meals, on time- that is very important- do not keep a pig waiting for their breakfast. This I have also learned the hard way.

Breakfast- do not disturb

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