Lanie's Simple Life: The story of Chance

A potbelly pig was living across the road, along with 3 Chester white pigs that were probably 4-to-five months old and they were the neighbors pigs, and Joe my neighbor was going to slaughter these 3 Chester whites for food.

Four pigs, four pens and they were across the dirt road from our house and lived there for about 6 months. The owner Joe would just throw them food in the morning on his way to work and again at night when he got home.. I didn't know anything about pigs except for Wilbur who was the piggy in my favorite book growing up called Charlotte's Web.

I had heard that Potbelly pigs are 4 on the list of the most intelligent. 1st is Humans, 2nd is Monkeys, and 3rd is Whales/Dolphins. Then in 4th are Potbelly pigs. I was surprised me being a dog mom of Golden Retrievers, that dogs were number 27 on this list. I think my dogs are very smart, so you can imagine how smart Chance is.

Potbelly pigs need human contact and are like a 3 to 4-year old child. I have heard they are very smart and that they never forget, and are very loveable, to just one owner. I said to myself everyday as I drove pass these pigs and saw them in their pens, or if I heard them when feeding my gang, I wasn't going to get attached to these 4 pigs since I knew the 3 Chester whites were going to be slaughtered and that alone would be hard on me. So I ignored them for about a week, or let's say I tried to ignore them until I couldn't stand it any longer.

I cut up some fruit and put in a bowl and set out to meet these 4 pigs. Seeing the lack of care Joe was giving them, they were just so cute as babies and I'm sure they were craving some human contact.. The potbelly pig there was an adult about 4 years old and this was in 2004. So I figured this: For the time they had left here on earth, I would show them some human love and give them some attention and when they go to heaven, hopefully they'll be looking down at me and saying "Hey there's that nice lady who loved us on earth and fed us sweet treats."

Well during that 6 months I was going over there and giving them fruit everyday and talking to them, named all 4 of them, and quickly fell in love with all 4 pigs. . I named the 3 Chester whites, Manny, Mo and Jack and of course I named the potbelly pig, Chance. I don't know why I named him Chance but by the end of the story, I believe someone knew something at that time when I named him that I didn't.

I was always leaving stuff from off the internet about pig care on the piggy's food barrel for Joe my neighbor to read, but he never did.. I told his wife to let Ron know when they were to be slaughtered so that Ron could send me on a errand to the store and then I guess I would find out about the slaughter the next time I went over there to feed them, or Ron would tell me when I got home that they were no longer alive..

Well Ron comes home one night and said that I had to go to the store. I wasn't in a good mood and I didn't want to fight the traffic and the road rage on the 15 freeway, so then I asked him why?. He wouldn't say, didn't really have anything of importance to where I had to rush to the store & get it, so I said "no, I had things to do here". Ron then says to me "Lanie, I need for you to leave because you told me to send you to the store when the pigs are going to be slaughtered".

"HELLLOOOO", I didn't want to know.

These neighbors were going to kill them right across the road from our front door, then hang them there up side down and cut them up. I couldn't believe they had no consideration for the people coming up and down the road and having them witness this slaughter as they drive by them. Well, I knew that the potbellied pig was there still and so I asked Joe if he had taken the potbelly away & out of the pen when Joe shot these 3 pigs. I mean after he shoots them, I figured they will bleed out, and just that thought in my head made me sick to my stomach. Then Joe and who ever was with him, I figured would slaughter them not even 50 feet from where these pigs lived for 6 months..

He said he didn't want to move the potbelly and said the pig would be alright. I argued with him to where I was almost in tears but I didn't want him to think he got the best of me and so I was so sick to my stomach, I turned to leave but I told him to please put up something so the potbelly wouldn't at least see this happening to his buddies.

The next morning it was so quiet over there across the road. Usually when the pigs were still there and I went outside with my gang and maybe talked to my dogs or called the dogs names to come in the house, just hearing my voice, these piggy's would start with their noises they make and I would hear movement over there. Not this morning. I just had to go over there to see the potbelly and see if Joe finally gave in and moved him or just check to see if he was okay but I didn't want to see anything like blood or guts.

So I put on my rubber boots and slowly walked across the road to the pig pens. There was two pens on my left and two pens on my right. The potbelly's pen was on the far left of me so I had to walk down a little pathway in between these four pens in order to get to the potbelly's pen. As I started down the pathway the smell of death hit my nose and made me plug my nose quickly. My heart started racing even before entering this pathway and I could feel it pounding out of my chest. Before me, there was puddles of blood on both sides of me, in front of me and I had to walk through blood puddles to get to the PB's pigs pen.

I heard something move, and called out "Who's there'? I walked down the pathway and couldn't yet see the potbelly pig and I heard no pig noises from him like he usually makes when I came to visit, and so I stepped up my pace, and moved a little faster..

Oh gosh!!!!!.

In front of me was a wood panel blocking the pathway so you couldn't go any further and there was blood splattered all over it and also in the pen across from the potbelly's. It looked like to me right away that those poor sweet pigs put up a fight for their lives and I began to cry just imagining what those poor piggy's went through before they died. I was plugging my nose and just knowing I was walking through blood and the flies and knats already sucking on this blood, was making me so upset but I kept moving until I reached the pen. What my eyes laid upon was so pitiful and so sad that just writing about it again brings tears to my eyes.

Backed up as far as he could push his body against that back wall of his pen stood the potbelly shaking as he looked at me and there was blood splatters all over the front of him, and he was making these weird high pitched noises. My heart ached for this potbelly and I couldn't help but burst out crying, and I mean sobbing right there at his pen. At that moment, I didn't care about the smell of death. I didn't care I was kneeling in puddles of blood. I didn't care that these knats and flies were flying all around us. All I cared about and wanted so badly was to comfort this frightened, scared, traumatized potbelly who was now just staring at me with a blank look in his eyes.

Before all this took place, each day when I came over to feed all four of them, this potbelly came right away up to the front of his 4' x 4' pen and would greet me. In that six months time, I got him to eat from my hand and he would lay down on his side so I could rub his big belly. I felt he trusted me. So as he looked at me, all I could think of at that moment was to do what I did everyday with these pigs, I began to sing my song just for him this time,
"You are my sunshine".

I kneeled there softly singing through my tears "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy when skies are grey. You'll never know Chance how much I love you, so Chance please don't go away".

It was like my voice hit home with him and the blank stare was now looking at me like he knew me. So for the next 1/2 hour I told him to come to me. To please come here and let me help him. I let him know I wasn't going to hurt him and I sang in between. At last, he took 1 step towards me. I told him "Good boy!!! Come on Chance, come on over here and let me rub your belly". I said that over and over. He took another step and stopped and finally he was coming toward my stretched out hand. I just kneeled there assuring him it's okay, and I wasn't going to hurt him.

Finally he reaches me, and what really tore me up inside is that God is my witness, this potbelly had tears running down it's face. His tears ran over the blood splatters on his body in his front and the blood started to roll down with the tears to his hooves. You can't imagine how I was feeling at that moment. I wanted to throw up but I kneeled there and didn't make any fast moves until my stretched out hand touched the side of his body.

When he let me touch him I lost it and couldn't hold my hurt for him in any longer and sobbed my eyes out. I sat there as he stood in front of me and swore to him I would get him away from here and how sorry I was he had to see whatever he saw. I told him over and over again how sorry I was and I should of been more demanding with Joe or moved him myself. I then tried to feed him some fruit I brought along but he wouldn't eat. How could anyone with that smell of death and all the blood and insects around.

I was hoping that Joe still wanted to get rid of him as he had offered me the potbelly a few months earlier and I didn't or even wanted a pig, period. I was a dog mom..

Suddenly, I heard Ron calling me and of course I couldn't answer him because I didn't want to shout and scare this pig, so I heard Ron coming towards us and told him no, to stay back. I told him I would be back at the house soon but as soon as Ron saw me kneeling in blood puddles and smelling the death, he demanded I leave out of there and come back in the morning again. How can I now leave this poor pig here alone after he came to me. But Ron was very serious about me leaving there NOW, so I just had to get up and turn my back on him and leave that night. I cried hard all the way across the road and into my shower.

My mind kept showing me this poor pig looking for me as he stood in blood puddles, and so that night I couldn't sleep at all. I got dressed and grabbed a flashlight and walked over there but in another direction to avoid the blood and kind of came up behind his pen. I had a folding chair with me and my Brandi girl, my golden retriever and I sat there by his pen that night scared to death of coyotes coming to attack us and scared of every little sound that I heard. I sat there and talked to him and sang to him until I guess I fell asleep for a few.

I was awakened by Joes truck coming down the hill and I jumped up and waved him down and with tears down my face, I started yelling at him.. I was livid and I tore into him big time. After telling him off, ding bat me goes on to ask if I could have the pig. Joe just laughed in my face and said "No" I know he doesn't want this pig and as evil as he is now to me, he said no because I just told him off. It just broke my heart.

So I talked to Ron and told him that I had to get that pig out of there and then afterwards we can call a rescue place to come get him. So now, I was on a mission. I asked Joe again, after saying I was sorry to him as I clenched my fists

while saying I was sorry, and asked again and again if he still wanted to give me the pig. He said again, "no" and that he was going to keep it. I told him it was terrible and mean of him to do what he did to that pig and he just grinned a half ass grin at me and walked away.. Joe was going to leave that pig there by himself, in that blood mess around him and in the pigs pen, and would never pay attention to him since the pig was at the bottom of their hill and they lived up on top of the hill..

So sadly a few more days go by and I am so upset and spending to much time in that awful area and even asked Joe to clean it up, but he said it would eventually dry up on it's own. I was so angry at this man and I am thinking I wish there was a law for "An eye for an eye" but since there isn't, I was spending most of my days with this pig and trying to clean up the area around him a little bit.

The potbelly isn't eating his pig chow and so I would bring him veggies and fruit. I couldn't take it anymore after 4 days, and finally talked to his wife Kim. I figured I had a chance with her since one, she was a woman and two, she has emotions and a heart.(at least I hope she did).

It worked!!!

To make a long story short, (now I say that) She said take the pig that day. Then later that day Ally, my youngest golden retriever gets sick and ends up going to the vets, & with surgery, medications, and x-ray's for her, were well over $500.00. I am stressing big time now because we had to buy a pen for the pig to put up over on our property and buy food etc. and we no money.

We just moved into the new house we had put on our 20 acres and so we were broke, literally. I'm now stressing about Ally and how much more money is she going to take to get well, and the property taxes were due soon, and so I was in my office taking all this in & having a moment by myself to gather my thoughts and think about what Ron and I had just finished talking about on how to make a pen with what materials we already had, but Ron wanted to use the credit card and I didn't.

I had to get out of the house and so I jumped in the truck and went to get the mail. I came back in and put the mail on the kitchen island and Ron was there cooking his great fried chicken. We talked a little more and I ended up walking away and into my office and I got on the computer. About 1/2 hour goes by and Ron walks in my office with a huge smile on his face and hands me a letter from The Escrow company. Inside is a refund check for over $2,000.00. I knew right then and there that I was to use this money for Ally and the pig pen.

God wanted me to have that pig. So the next morning, we went to Norco and bought $800.00 worth of panels for the pig & decided to set up this pen by our 5,000 gallon water container, and this pig now had over 3 times the space he had before. After shoveling dirt, throwing out straw and putting up the pig pen, I was stressing on how to get him over here to our side without freaking this pig out. Ron was going to rope him but I couldn't let him do that, so never having walked a pig across a dirt road before, I ran into the house, cut up an apple, grabbed the movie camera and ran back across the road and Ron and I went over to his bloody pen and Ron opened up the pig pen and then Ron left the area so I was alone with the pig..

I was standing in the opening of his pen where this pig had never been out of it for over 6 months and I softly told him to come to me. It took a few minutes of me repeating my self and telling him it was okay and to please just follow me & he did. I could not believe it. Ron stood there shock by what he was seeing. This pig had to walk down that bloody pathway in order to get across the road and he was right behind me following me as I went across the road into his new home. No more then 3 minutes it took, all on video to.

You see this pig wagging his tail behind me into his new house and his tail has not stopped wagging since that day. It was totally amazing. I have already fallen in love with this pig and now we are going to keep him. He is so happy here and loves me too, I can feel it. This pig rescue lady that stopped by here said that pigs know when someone has saved their life or has helped them. If he didn't trust me he would of never walked like he did across the street that quickly.

So I decided that this pig deserves another chance in life and I was hoping I can make that happen for him and decided to name him Chance. For the second chance of his life. A better life. He deserves a life of love and happiness. He now has a 2nd chance. Never thought I'd have a pig and if I were to have one I would of wanted it to look like Wilbur in Charlotte's web, since that is my favorite story to this day.. LOL.

So yes I have a potbellied pig now. here is the best part of this story. Next morning, I'm at the grocery store and end up buying this woman's magazine I never bought before and when I got home and finally, finally was able to sit down to relax, I opened the magazine and as God is my witness, I open the first page and here in this woman's magazine is this picture of the 3 pigs that looked like the 3 that were just killed, but now with wings and guess what it said under it?. I bet you thought only dogs went to heaven!!!!

I about passed out. That was another sign from God. I truly believe that was a sign, like a "thank you" from those 3 pigs up above in hog heaven. Weird huh? That was my story of Chance and how I got him. I have had him now since Jan 9th 2004 and I love that guy so much now. He isn't going anywhere. I just hope I am giving him his second chance in life. I hope he knows what it feels like to be loved and to love back and to trust someone now. Me.

**Chances 2nd year anniversary is coming up. He passed away on Jan 5, 2015 and we miss him so much. We buried him on our property so he is close by. Here are photos of my sweet pig Chance. May he rest in peace.