The two pot-bellied pigs were found hamming it up outside a York Township home on Monday, prompting the homeowner to call 911.
The two unwanted visitors were "just hanging out on somebody's back porch" along Green Valley Road, said Ashley Martin, owner of Allegiant Animal Care and the township's animal control officer, who arrived after police called for her assistance.
After some wrangling, Martin and an Allegiant employee were able to usher the lively four-legged trespassers into waiting cars for a trip to the York County SPCA.
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A man called Tuesday night claiming the pigs as his own, said Melissa Smith, executive director of the SPCA.
The man will pick up the pigs Wednesday morning at the SPCA, Smith said, adding the man didn't say how he lost the animals.
Heavy lifting: Rounding up the pigs was no easy task for Martin and the Allegiant employee.
They had to use snare poles to direct the pigs — one male and one female — into a chute created with blankets so the pigs didn't have an easy way of escaping, Martin said.
"They were fighting every bit of the way," she said.
The Allegiant employee was able to lift the pigs into the cars, where they gazed out the windows on the way to the SPCA, Martin said.
The pigs were kept in the SPCA's quarantine area, where staff put out hay as bedding for them, Smith said.
Good shape: The pigs were in pretty good shape, and Martin estimated they weigh close to 200 pounds each.
"They were well taken care of," she said.
That led her to believe the sow and stag could have wandered away from home. Where the pigs were found, a rural area with farms nearby, could also be an indication that their owner abandoned them there in hopes that a farmer would take them in.
Told the pigs would soon be going home, Martin said she is "so glad the owner was located."
"We took them (to the SPCA) hoping someone would claim them," Martin said.
(York Dispatch - Dec 22, 2014)
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