TURNER – Animal Control Officer Wendell Strout was driving around Thursday night with a pot-bellied pig tied up in the back of his truck. The pig weighed well over 100 pounds and it had already established a reputation for misbehaving.
“He’s a big boy,” Strout said. “He’s a lot to handle.”
The pig was reported running around in Turner last week. Strout searched for the animal then but did not find it. On Thursday, the beast was making its presence known more loudly hanging around on a front yard along Upper Street.
Strout went back to Turner to fetch the pig at about 6:30 p.m., but the animal had no intentions of going easily. Once it was approached, it took off with admirable speed and led three healthy men on a long chase.
“It took off across a pasture,” Strout said. “It ran past a rock wall.”
Strout and two area men, winded from the chase, caught up with the pig several minutes later. Catching it was the easy part. Corralling and subduing the animal was a lot harder.
Strout managed to get a leash around the animal’s thick neck. Then, with the help of the other two men, was able to bind the pig’s four legs together.
Strout did not know who his two helpers were. He only knew he was lucky to have them around.
“I couldn’t have done it myself,” Strout said. “No way.”
The pig was literally hog-tied in the back of Strout’s truck. By 7:30 p.m., he was driving to a barn in Greene where he would leave the animal while trying to figure out where it had come from. The end of a hard night’s work.
Only it wasn’t. As Strout headed toward Greene, there was suddenly a rumble from the back of the truck. A hulking shadow in the rearview mirror. The pig had wriggled out of the binds that held him and was righting himself in the truck bed.
Strout pulled to the side of the road and quickly got the persnickety porcine under control again. Winded once more, he headed toward the barn where he would put the rambunctious animal under lock and key for the night.
“It’s a good sized pig,” Strout said. “I just don’t want him to hurt himself or anybody else.”
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