As
a rehabilitator, you will always have one special animal who made
a "unique" impression on you. It might have been your
sweetest animal or it could have been your most destructive
animal. I think both apply to my most memorable animal,
"Mrs. Piggy."
In our group, we often transfer animals to another rehabber because that person is more experienced in the type of animal or has better resources to help that animal. Piggy, as we called her, passed through many surroundings on her way to her current surroundings!
Piggy is a groundhog that was picked up as a baby beside an interstate. She had become separated from her mom and by the time she made it to a WWI rehabber, she was in bad shape. After many tense and emotional days, and a lot of hard work on the part of two dedicated rehabbers, Piggy began to thrive and grow but refused to eat her natural diet. She was discovered to have a voracious sweet tooth, and was constantly searching her keeper's purse for mints.
Piggy was the first groundhog that anyone in the area had rehabbed, and thus, no one knew how easily they became imprinted. When she approached the age for release, it was evident that she wouldn't make it in the wild. She had no fear of man or dog and would have been in trouble with farmers and large dogs (although I think she might have held her own with a poodle!).
I acquired Piggy after Hurricane Fran virtually destroyed the home of the rehabber she had been staying with. Since that rehabber had more pressing things to do, Piggy moved into my house, quickly establishing her dominance with our pets and families. We turned our screened porch into a home for her with a burrow in the corner. She wasn't crazy about this arrangement and snuck into the house at every opportunity. She'd then burrow under my son's bed and the lure of an oatmeal cookie was the only thing that would make her budge.
Life with Piggy involved many escapades. One particular day we came home after she had been accidentally locked in the house all day and found the TV, radios, lamps, VCR, telephones, ect. not working. We discovered after checking the circuits that all of the cords had been chewed in half. We could not figure out how she hadn't been electrocuted. My eight-year old, Cameron, guessed that's the reason they're called "Ground" hogs.
No fruit could be kept in the fruit bowls nor candy in dishes. Piggy would climb up any height for a banana or Reese's Cup. She was a pro at manipulating my three-year old, Kellen, into letting her in and opening the refrigerator so she could climb in and search for a snack. Kellen would wake up at 5:30 in the morning and munch dry cereal until the rest of the house arose. Most mornings I would find Piggy and Kellen happily munching Cheerios and watching Cartoons. Kellen thought having Piggy was like having a little sister. She was constantly grabbing one of his toys and hiding it under a bed.
One evening we were having a dinner party on the screened porch. I had spent all day cleaning it and the house, and put Piggy in a kennel in our back bedroom for the evening. All was well until one of my guests asked why there was toilet paper all over the house. To my embarrassment, the children had let Piggy out and she was pulling all the toilet paper under the bed to make a nest. Try explaining this to non-animal people!
This was the beginning of "Piggy in Heat". She could have been the PMS spokes model. She would pull anything she could find under Cameron's bed. We even caught her trying to pull the curtains under the bed. My husband laughed when he said we would wake up one morning and find Kellen dragged by his footy pajamas into her burrow.
Next, we entered Piggy's "destructive" phase. She chewed through a window screen and escaped outside while we were away one day. We were frantic when we found her missing and searched the neighborhood. A high-pitched scream zeroed us into the next door neighbor's yard where dirt was flying from beside the steps. Many apologies and replaced plants later we thought we had her happily contained, only to have her eat a hole through the door and tear up the neighbor's yard once again. At this point, we realized that this wasn't fair to Piggy and we were probably going to be kicked out of the neighborhood.
I contacted Leslie, a rehabber in the N.C. mountains, who said she'd place Piggy in the animal park at Grandfather Mountain. She'd be fed everyday, and if she didn't hibernate she'd be wintered with a male groundhog. This seemed as a perfect solution, and we were excited because we could still visit her.
Things didn't work out as planned in the groundhog enclosure, though. Piggy was a little too bossy and didn't get along well with her peers. She was then put in the Black Bear Habitat and happily ate peanuts with the bears all day. She then began to escape and climb into visitors laps to eat directly out of their peanut bags. The animal keepers were terrified that she would bite a visitor and called Leslie to pick her up.
Leslie knew a rehabber with 100 acres of land that backs up to Pisgah National Forest who had a male groundhog who needed a companion. Piggy was transferred there at the beginning of winter. Last check found her hibernating with the male under a large brush pile.
Becky Blair
