'Highway Pig' saved from slaughterhouse
Last week he was on his way to slaughter. This week, Wally the pig has been feasting on apples and Milk-Bone dog biscuits.
“This is a game we play,” said Andy Oestreich, the senior humane officer at the Sioux Falls Area Humane Society, while holding a box of Milk-Bones. “I hide them in the straw and he finds them.”
Life is about to get even better for the pig that survived falling out of a truck on Interstate 90 just a few miles short of the John Morrell & Co. hog processing facility. SoulSpace Farm Sanctuary in New Richmond, Wis. is adopting Wally after no owner claimed him.
Like the fictional Wilbur from the classic children’s book “Charlotte’s Web,” Wally appears destined to cheat the butcher by living out his days on a farm.
“Once you’re here, this is it,” said Kara Breci, SoulSpace’s founder. “This is your home.”
Breci picked Wally up on Friday afternoon. The pig was in no mood for another trailer ride and it took some cajoling to get him aboard. Humane Officer Jordan Utech had to lead him into the trailer with a pole and then escape as the pig tried to rush the exit.
Wally caused a stir when a motorist reported that a pig fell out of a truck on I-90 last Monday. Highway Patrol troopers, the Department of Transportation and others responded out of fears the 250-pound animal could cause a traffic accident.
By the time Highway Patrol Sgt. Steven Schade arrived, the pig had settled in a muddy ditch on the side of the highway.
“He was in pig heaven, I would say,” Schade said.
Worst-case scenario, troopers were prepared to shoot him in order to avoid an accident. But they corralled him and he was taken to the Human Society, where a vet treated his road rash.
Oestreich, who gave him his name, said the pig has the demeanor of a Wally.
“We knew that he had road rash so we put in lots of straw to make it comfy for him,” Oestreich said. “He’ll wallow through it and make a bed. It’s kind of cute.”
Previously: 250-pound pig falls from truck, rescued from interstate
Related: Best of Argus 911: Animal Edition
Word of Wally’s plight spread quickly thanks to the @Argus911 Twitter account, and Breci, a retired St. Paul police officer, made a bid to adopt the animal. To Breci, this was why she founded SoulSpace, to rescue farm animals.
The self-described animal lover bought the 11-acre farm after reading “The Gentle Barn,” a book about a sanctuary farm. After an injury forced her retirement from the police force, she decided to launch her farm, receiving tremendous support from people in the Twin Cities, just across the border. Last summer, the farm’s first, more than 800 people visited the nearly three-dozen animals who call SoulSpace home.
“I can’t believe how much they love the people and attention,” she said of the animals.
Wally will be quarantined and checked by a vet when he arrives. Then he’ll be introduced to the other animals, first through a fence. Eventually he’ll comingle with the other animals.
Oestreich, who has been feeding Wally apples and Milk-Bones, is happy he’s heading to a sanctuary farm.
“What that pig’s been through, he deserves freedom,” she said.
Schade, who grew up on a farm, said he likes knowing that the pig they rescued on the side of I-90 will live out his days playing in the mud and doing what pigs like to do.
“I feel happy for the pig,” he said.
