The Campaign to Save Gwendolyn the Potbellied Pig

Gwendolyn: Image is from "Pat Brown" Link Below

Gwendolyn is a 20-year old potbellied pig that has been living peacefully with her owner, Pat Brown, since her youth.  That is, until Prince George’s County disrupted that peace.  When Brown first brought Gwendolyn to her home in Prince George’s County, Maryland, zoning laws were broad enough to protect a large variety of animals as pets.  But at some point in time during that 20 years, officials deemed it too broad.  With one word (”customarily”), the county was able to seize wide-sweeping powers to determine an animal’s legitimacy as a pet.  To simplify their argument, if an animal was not “customarily” seen as a pet by the authorities, it was not a pet.    This alteration had the most impact on pet potbellied pigs and their owners because of the widespread perception that any type of pig could never amount to anything more than a prospective pork loin or Christmas ham, never mind their high intelligence (greater than a dog’s), their cleanliness, their housebreakability, and their gentle, personable natures.  Indeed, some potbellied pigs would probably make better family members than some human beings.

Regardless of these distinctly pet-like characteristics, PG County authorities felt compelled, on the basis of one isolated complaint, to swoop into Ms. Brown’s life and issue an ultimatum.  Either she gets rid of Gwendolyn,  her porcine friend of 20 years, in her own way or they would do it for her with a gun (or other lethal instrument).  Never mind that this pig has not been a problem for 20 years, has the general support of the neighborhood, and is close to her natural time of death anyway.  Get rid of this potbellied pig now because pigs are not “customarily” thought of as pets.  But by the way, since when did custom have any bearing on what people should be able or not able to do in the United States?  Are they really saying that their sole legal argument for not having a pet potbellied pig is based on the fact that most people do not have pigs as pets and have not had them in the past?  I would love to see this line of reasoning in laws pertaining to the relationship to the American demographic majority with American demographic minorities.  “I’m sorry.  Americans customarily live as one immediate family per household.  Grandma and Grandpa, Uncle and Auntie, and all of your cousins are going to have to find separate houses.”  Most people would find such a law as grossly unfair, a needless limitation of freedom, and the logic behind it ridiculous.

Similarly, to ban an animal from certain areas on the simple basis of “custom” is ludicrous.  Banning such animals as Gwendolyn from her loving home, is in my mind akin to banning Grandma and Grandpa from living in their married child’s home.  It is a common mantra in the U.S. that pets are part of the family. Well, I guess if you own a traditional animal, a dog, a cat, or a bunny rabbit, this is the case.  But accept a potbellied pig into your family and you’ve gone too far.  With a quick stroke of the pen, a harmless potbellied pig that was once legal becomes illegal, that was once a pet becomes non-pet, and that was once family becomes non-family.

While all animals ideally have the potential to be members of one’s family, I am willing to concede that this is not always possible, nor should it be.  An elephant in a small Prince George’s County backyard is neither good for the elephant nor the general community because of the likelihood of a potential safety risk.  These are the two main points that should be considered when setting a community’s animal policy: the animal’s safety and the public’s safety.  However, it should be possible to create reasonable, fair guidelines that account for these two points while simultaneously giving citizens choice in what animals they want to make a part of their household.

Twenty years ago Gwendolyn came to live at a little house in Prince George’s County.  A good-spirited pig, she was neither a danger to herself or to others, enjoying plenty of space and plenty of love.  During the span of her life there, only one nasty, misporcinthropic (a made-up word) person complained about her presence there.  And because one person complained, PG County came at Gwendolyn with all the force of an unjust law and a de facto death sentence.

Perhaps the person who complained did not like pig-kind.  Perhaps he did not like dog-kind either.  Perhaps the bitter soul did not like animals at all, whatsoever, in any form.  Perhaps if he could have, he would have called in a brigade to take out all the animals in his environs.  But he didn’t because all such calls would have fallen on deaf ears.  But a pig, that’s different.  He only reported poor Gwendolyn because he knew he could and he knew they’d respond in a manner of his liking.  After all pigs aren’t pets, customarily.

My livestock doing livestock-type things; actually, they're watching television.

Strangely enough, it was my tip to NBC4 Washington that got them to run a story on this.  I’ve since heard that the story has been run multiple times yesterday and today.  Hopefully, the movement will gain momentum.  You can watch below:

UPDATE: Pat Brown shares her own story. This is where I first learned about Gwendolyn’s situation.

UPDATE II: Banner clipart courtesy of Bobbie Peachey who holds the copyright,
http://webclipart.about.com

UPDATE III: NBC4 plans to air a follow-up segment tonight at 11, December 28, 2009.