By Kathy Chouteau
It all started when the sharp eye of Victoria Folks, identified as a May Valley resident on Nextdoor, spotted a most unusual thing rousing about on her neighbor’s front lawn Tuesday: a black pig. Folks promptly did what any good neighbor should when spotting such a site: she posted about it on the neighborhood social networking service, in case someone was missing it.
“Are you looking for a pig?” she posted, noting a “fairly chill” pig was currently in her neighbor’s front yard on Canyon Road at Clark Road in El Sobrante, near the Richmond border and Wildcat Canyon.
Soon, another update followed from Folks, who said the pig—which another neighbor estimated as weighing more than 100 lbs.—was now “on the move” and had wandered across the street.
That might have been the end of it, had another porcine post entitled “Pig on the loose” not appeared on Nextdoor the very next day (Wednesday) by Tara Zak. Also identified on the site as a May Valley resident, Zak informed her neighbors that “the black pig that someone posted about yesterday” was “still on the loose” and was outside her house on Valley Lane trucking toward Linden Lane.
This update cued posts from other neighbors, with one naming the marauding pig “Piggy Smalls” and another hypothesizing that it had embarked on its neighborhood adventure after being scared by fireworks. All the while, nobody came forward to claim Mr./Ms. Smalls as their own.
Later Wednesday came another post, this time with heartening news that was no less adventuresome. A neighbor from the same area, Michelle Waldo, posted that the pig had wandered up Greenridge Drive onto Upland Drive.
“We ended up herding him (along with a neighbor’s help) into our fenced backyard for temporary safety and we were trying to figure out who to call when Animal Control drove by,” said Waldo on Nextdoor. “Then a team of the Animal Control officer, me, my husband and two kids managed to get the pig safely into the Animal Control truck (a bit of a feat!),” Waldo added.
According to Waldo, Piggy Smalls is now on his/her way to the Martinez Animal Shelter farm. The animal control officer said the pig will be safe at their barn; there he/she will stay to see if anyone comes to claim him, or he will be put up for adoption and sent to an animal rescue, per Waldo.
“He was actually a quite nice pig, so I’m glad that he’s safely off the street and on his/[her] way to a farm,” she said.
For more info about Piggy Smalls, call Contra Costa Animal Services at (925) 608-8400.
