Penny and the Piglets

Trigger Warning

(Trauma, survival, sexual/pregnancy abuse mentioned)

Everyone meet Penny. 

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We got a call about two weeks ago that a pig wondered  onto a property with a big piece of wire shoved through the top of her snout.

Apparently it is a “useful tool for breeding”. There is also a disgusting practice of putting a ring through the septum of a pig to make it too painful for them to dig. It’s all barbaric, but this ring looked very malicious.

We immediately agreed to take her in and so the trap was set to bring her here.

She disappeared for ten days and we all feared the worst, but two days ago she showed up again! This time the wire in her snout had been twisted much tighter and it appears she was also tied up as well because we are currently treating a swollen leg with bruising.

How this girl escaped this nightmare TWICE I have no idea, but she did. And she didn’t just do it for herself, but it was confirmed today by Dr Mathews that she also saved her unborn piglets.

She arrived to the rescue on a day that I had several trauma survivors here to greet her, so it was profound to watch them meet her with gentle understanding.

I will never forget the text I got from the precious young friend standing beside her that said, “she may be the only one here that knows what it was like for me when they forced me to do those things tied up in the basement.”

My world is complicated and heartbreaking and powerful and heavy. My eyes are open to so much more than I ever thought I could hold onto, let alone offer comfort and healing through. Penny the pig introduced me to a new level of ugly that I didn’t know about yet, but we’ll counteract it with an even stronger amount of love and determination to stop this kind of abuse before it begins. For our human and animal friends.

Its not easy. It feels overwhelmingly impossible at times. But what I always say to my people is, thankfully it appears that all the constantly broken pieces of our hearts some how continually come back together bigger and stronger than they started.

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