Spot The Pig Is A Household Pet

Spot the Pig is a Household Pet AG WORLD Ag World 10-4-17 "My wife, Nola, wanted a pet. I don't like dogs and I hate cats, so I jokingly told her we could get a pig. She took me up on it and now we have Spot," sayd Don Schley, Elk Mound, Wis. "Spot", a 430-lb. barrow, has complete run of the Schley's 5-bedroom country home. They got him last August when he was an innocent looking, 4-week old, 12-lb., mixed-breed porker. His name's derived from the single black spot he has on his other-wise red and white body. "It took just three days to house-train Spot. He's only forgotten to go outside once since then but he didn't forget again after I paraded him in front of our barbeque pit," Don jokes. Spot has his own bedroom, complete with a king-size mattress lying on the floor. Box springs rest against the bedroom walls so he doesn't scrape the walls with his feet when he sleeps. Now tall enough to rub his back on the kitchen table, Spot loves sweets, roast pork, barbecued chicken, Rice Krispie treats and fruit. His basic diet, however, is hog grower pellets. Don says Spot spends most of his day sleeping, usually not getting up until noon. He goes outside in nice weather and stays out till 8 p.m. Then, it's back inside the house and into bed. Besides having run of the house, he has a free rein outside and does quite a job of roto-tilling, notes Don. "Like all pigs, he likes to play in the mud. When he was small, he used to jump in the bathtub. Now that he's so big, we have to wash him with a garden hose outside. In winter, he gets a shower about once a week." Among Spot's loves are ClassicCoke and anything red. He loves to carry the Schley's red phone around. Last Christmas, he tore open all the presents wrapped in red paper but did leave the tree alone. His curiosity also means that Don's rifles and Nola's glasswear had to be put up out of reach. Perhaps the best Spot story Don tells is about the time the inquisitive pig dug out 10 cans of beer cooling in a snow bank. By the time Don found Spot, he was on his 10th can. "He'd poked a hole in each can with his teeth, then tipped them up one at a time to guzzle down the beer. He had quite a hang-over. Slept most of the next two days and wouldn't eat. We even had to give him some Tylenol," Don recalls. "The experience didn't stop Spot's taste for beer, though. He still enjoys an Old Style now and then."

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