Mabel, Day 1 (submitted by Jean Rhode)

Today, we took in one of the saddest animals I’ve ever seen. Her name is Mabel and she’s one of two potbelly pigs surrendered by a woman who lost her husband. She and a friend drove up in a pick-up truck with the pigs inside. Somehow, they managed to lift the pigs off the truck. Not an easy task, as both of them, Ozzie and Mabel, are morbidly obese. We cannot see Mabel’s eyes through grossly inflated cheeks. Her belly drags on the ground when she walks, but she’s not walking right now. She’s in a corner lying on hay. Ozzie came up to me to say hi, but Mabel retreats from my hand. She wouldn’t eat her dinner, placed right under her nose. For a pig not to eat—something is seriously wrong.

We don’t know her story—how old she is, what she’s gone through, how she is with people. Lorraine, Walt, Megan, Kathy, Julie, Alex and I individually stop by her stall to welcome to the mound of potbelly girl on the pile of fresh hay in the dark corner of the stall.

This will be her first night at the Sanctuary as she gets used to the smells and sounds of the barn settling into the evening. Before Lorraine leaves for the night, she tells Mabel that we love her, that this has been a hard day with traveling and coming to a new place, but things will get better.

Mabel is a wheezing, unmoving mound of potbelly in the hay.