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Confessions Of A Foster Mom

My foster pigs name is Elle. I had always turned away fostering because I already have 4 pigs of my own and that’s a lot to handle at times. I’ve had my 4 pigs for 3 years now and they are best buds and I didn’t want to upset them by bringing another piggy into the family. Well that all changed one day when I was contacted for help with a pig that was 15 minutes away from me. Elle’s family had to move out of state and the new town they were moving to did not allow pigs. They had lined up a new family for her to go to but the new family could not get her until two days after they had to move. So they had a friend go to their house and feed her and let her outside for a bit each day. The new family that was supposed to adopt her contacted her family and backed out of getting her the day they were scheduled to and their friend couldn’t watch her more than those two days cause it was too hard with her work schedule. That’s when I was contacted. Elle was going to be stuck in an empty house and nobody to take care of her. I was keeping in contact with her family on how we need to fixed this problem. We then had a lady that lived about 3 hours away offer to foster her but couldn’t get this direction for 2 more days to get her. At this point I thought I cant leave this poor girl alone in an empty house with nobody to feed or care for her.  That’s when I said, ok give me the address and I’ll be there in 20 minutes and I will hold her until the new foster could get her in a couple days. I made it very clear that I cannot keep her longer. Well, as you see that failed since I’m writing a story about fostering her. I started posting in search for a forever home for her and found a great family for her about an hour away from us. They were so excited but asked if I could give them 2 weeks to pig proof their house and get everything prepared for her arrival. I said that would be fine, of course, I was ecstatic that she had a new forever home! A week later her future human mom calls me and is very upset. She says her husbands job is relocating them out of state and sends over the letter about his promotion and new location. She was so sad that this happened right when it did. After this I thought long and hard about contacting the lady who offered to foster in the first place, but I didn’t. I thought about the fear and sadness Elle would experience switching from home to home and I couldn’t let her go through with it. When Elle first came to me my pigs were very mean to her. I was cleaning battle wounds on a daily basis and it was so sad watching them go through this. I couldn’t let her go through their dominance process with a whole new group of pigs at the foster lady’s house. She was so scared at first that I slept in the pigs bedroom with her to make her feel safe and comfortable. She snuggled up and you could tell we were going to form a great bond with each other. All my pigs were rescued from abuse and neglect so I’m not used to having  a sweet pig right off the bat, and Elle just loves people so much. I joked to my fiancé and said “can we just trade one of ours for her?” Of course we would never do that. We worked long and hard with our 4 pigs so that they could learn not everyone will hurt them and we created a bond I will fight for to never loose with them. They only trust mom and dad and I would never want them to feel like we gave up on them. That’s why we still have Elle with us. I don’t want her to have to ever feel like we gave up on her and would allow her to not feel safe. Elle has become part of the family, she has even made her bed in our bedroom in which we normally tell the pigs to go lay in their own room or on their futon. We can tell that Elle feels more comfortable being by us than anything. Our pigs on the other hand feel safe with each other on their beds/futons. It has been a long, tough battle between my pigs and her coming into their life but each day gets better and better for them. I am still looking for a home for Elle but now that I have gotten to know her so well I’m being so picky about who her new family would be. She is too sweet and precious to put the stress of a new home on her again and the chance of a time after, since you never know. All I know is she is safe here. We had to move in 14 days from our last house or loose our pigs. We drained our bank accounts and moved an hour away because it was the first place we could go on such a short notice. We have and always will uproot our own lives to keep our family together. We fought our previous city to legalize pigs and won so if we ever want to we can move back now! Our family consist of 4 pigs, 2 dogs, 4 cats and now our foster Elle! We wouldn’t change it for the world! Well, because they are our world!

Alison Williams and Trey Hornbeck