“He was a great guard ‘dog’… He loves dried banana bits, and he gobbles up chocolate milkshake. That’s his favourite.”
|||Cape Town - Lounging in the grass outside his Woodstock home and munching on an apple, Ninja is clearly a contented pig. But his days in the suburbs may be numbered.
His owner, Robert Bingham, said the trotter had been “arrested” twice, chased away from beaches and parks and now he feels he cannot take the miniature pot-belly pig anywhere anymore. “I have no choice, I have to get him out of here.”
Bingham’s frustration came to a head after the “mischievous” pig managed to escape from his yard to sniff around the street last Thursday.
But while the pig was “minding his own business” he was quickly surrounded by police.
“One of the residents called them in,” said Bingham, who was at a nearby corner store when it happened. “I was told three cars turned up and it took all of the policemen to get him into the back of the car.”
The 40kg pig was taken to a pound in Atlantis and Bingham had to fork out R500 to bail him out.
However, police spokesman Captain FC van Wyk said that no incident of this nature had been reported to them.
This was not the pig’s first brush with the law. Last year, Ninja found himself in a tricky situation after he joined his owner for a walk in Newlands forest.
Bingham said the park’s law enforcement unit descended on the hiking party and escorted him from the forest.
Bingham added that he felt like the trotter was the target of “ignorant thinking” and “religious intolerance”.
“He’s gentle, he would never hurt anyone. People are allowed to take their dogs everywhere, but I can’t even take Ninja out of the yard.”
SANParks spokeswoman Merle Collins said national parks had to protect their wildlife and had to have strict rules to prevent the introduction of deadly diseases.
“The basic rule is that no pets are allowed… The reason we allow dogs into the Table Mountain National Park is because an environmental plan was made to allow for dog walking.”
Ninja was set to be taken to a “halfway house in the country” today where he will live until his owner can make permanent arrangements.
Bingham hoped it would give the pig a little more freedom, but he admitted it would be a painful parting.
“He was a great guard ‘dog’… He loves dried banana bits, and he gobbles up chocolate milkshake. That’s his favourite.”
Cape Argus