In January 2020, we took in a potbelly pig that was living as a pet in an elderly woman's garage. Napoleon was in desperate need of attention as without our intervention, euthanasia was the next course of action. Napoleon was so obese that he was no longer mobile; his stomach drug on the ground and he would scream in pain with every step he took, usually stepping on his own stomach. Pigs have hearts meant to support a body that is typically 150 pounds or less (this varies based on the overall size of the pig). Napoleon was nearly double the healthy weight and there were concerns that he would suffer a heart attack at any time.
Napoleon also had so much additional fat on his body that he was experiencing what is referred to as "fat blindness". This means the skin and fat from the top of his head is putting pressure downwards and causing the forehead to cover up the eyes.
We spent months of hard work following a veterinary guided weight loss plan and doing physiotherapy to strengthen his muscles again from being immobile. Napoleon lost over 100 pounds, had two tummy tucks, and was able to have skin removal surgery, removing an additional 22 pounds of skin.
Like many of our pigs who come from homes without other pigs, Napoleon struggled with some aggression issues that we have since worked through. Napoleon is now as healthy as he can be and spends his days happily lounging around with his buddies Rudy and Hubert.
When Jack first came to us he had a lot of health conditions. We were uncertain if we would be able to save him, and our vet was amazed the he survived the night in the clinic. Jack needed emergency surgery to remove an eye that was badly infected and had rotted away in the socket.
He also had the worst hooves our vet had ever seen. He had so much diarrhea dried to his bum and back legs, that his rear end hung down. When he was cleaned up it was also discovered that his tail had been docked so short it had been removed into his back, which is not proper for tail docking.
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He also needed to be castrated while at the vet because the previous owner had attempted to do it and it was not done properly; as a result one of the testicles remained and was badly infected.
With a lot of work Jack has healed from surgery and has become a fun loving snack-chasing guy, who is best friends (but mostly bossman) of the sheep gang.
We have our first ever donation matching offer! The annual Betty White Challenge on January 17 is our first fundraiser of 2025, and what better way to kick off the year by having a fundraiser in honour of someone who spent a great deal of time advocating for animals? A lovely and wonderful FARRM angel has offered to donation match, up to $10,000, the amount raised on January 17.
If you were thinking of contributing to one of our fundraisers or donation requests, this one will have double the impact!
In case you missed it with the busy holiday season, we are taking the rehoming part of our name literally and rehoming ourselves! We are moving this spring, and the first part of our forever home build will be the barn. We need to raise approximately $150,000 to buy the materials necessary for a 40x100' barn (which we'll be building ourselves), plus fencing for the property perimeter and interior pens.
A possible $20,000 to start off this amazing but scary endeavour would be heart stopping (in a good way).
We'll close with a quote from Betty White: "You can always tell about somebody by the way they put their hands on an animal."
Help us make our forever home a reality so we can continue to rescue souls who start their life knowing only cruel hands.
If you work for or have a business that would be interested in doing another donation match fundraiser, please reach out - we would love to collaborate!
