Ollie's story

In October 2003 I flew to Montana to meet my sister and drive down to Wyoming to visit our Aunt. While there we went to the shopping mall to wander around, there's not really all that much to do in a Wyoming city.
While in the toy store I found a battery operated toy pig that oinked and walked around, the name on the box was Ollie. We later were walking past the pet store and my aunt insisted that I go in. There was a huge glass tank with 8 baby pigs in it. They were soooo cute. We left and wandered around some more and just before leaving I wanted to look at the pigs again. One of them looked right at me and I couldn't resist, i bought it.
Ollie rode in the car with my sister and I back to Montana and there I called the Airport to find out what it would take to get her on the plane with me. She had to go to the Veterinarian and get a health certificate. Okay, I called and could only see a vet 2 hours before the plane took off. All accomplished and Ollie, had she been a dog, cat or goldfish in a bowl would have been allowed to sit in lap during the flight, as a pig she was livestock and had to ride in the Cargo hold.
Back in Portland she still could not be convinced to eat, this was 2 days later. Geoff called and took her in to the Vet where it was determined that she was not yet weaned and didn't know what food was, she was slowly starving to death. I fed her with a syringe and baby food and after a couple of days she KNEW what food was and ate a lot of it.
She lived in a cupboard where she kept growing and I finally had to enlarge the cupboard for her. I also used to knit her little sweaters to wear when we went outside. She was completely housebroken after just one week. As she grew though it was too much work to keep her in sweaters, I couldn't knit fast enough and she was getting big enough to throw her weight around when it came time to put one on her. I made her a little blanket instead that she wore with no complaints, even inside in her cupboard.


She hated to go outside when it was rainy though, it was always a battle, she would stay in her cupboard for up to 26 hours with out going outside and taking care of business. Finally after last winters battles of getting her to go outside I decided it was time to move her outside permanently.
She now has a snug little house full of straw and can come out whenever she wants. She seems to be okay with it now.
She was not happy about it at first. I had the space ready for her but wanted to get her used to it gradually. Unfortunately I had to fly to Montana suddenly and didn't really feel comfortable leaving Geoff to handle getting her in and out of the house, it was a process that took A LOT of patience, not Geoff's strong suit. So I had to just move her out there. I spent a couple of hours with her in her house the first night and had to lock her in to make her stay there.
Talking to Geoff from Montana I found out she would then not leave her house for 3 days.