A couple of years ago, a petrified little pig escaped the butcher, thanks to its new owner. Now the Herndon woman is fighting a zoning law to keep her 140-pound pet at her house.
By Bill Turque
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, January 29, 2007
Even in a pig's life, there are lean times that go along with the fat.
Last summer was the fat time for Bacon, a 3-year-old Vietnamese potbellied pig who moved into a house along a Herndon cul-de-sac with her owner, Bridgette Suder. Neighbors lined up to get a look at the sweet-natured 140-pounder with a bristly white coat and enormous pink-and-black snout that is the texture of "one big lip," according to Suder, who smooches it regularly. Kids came by to visit as Bacon cooled herself in the toddler wading pool that Suder set up in the back yard.
"We had a house full of people petting Bacon," said Suder, 23, a former kindergarten teacher who works for her father's educational consulting firm.
Then someone squealed. That started the lean times.
In early October, Suder received a letter from the town. It said that two inspectors "determined that you are keeping livestock, to wit: a Pot Belly Pig on the Property." They told Suder that swine are not allowed within the town limits.
She appealed to the town's Board of Zoning Appeals, and while the matter is pending, Suder and her neighbors have mobilized to save their Bacon.
Suder was encouraged when she looked at Virginia law, which indicates that if Bacon is not destined to be bacon, or otherwise sold for profit, she qualifies as a "companion animal." Herndon's zoning code also revealed an interesting exception. It bars town residents from keeping "more than one female fowl." Officials said that when the Town Council was getting ready a few years ago to crack down on people keeping chickens, roosters and geese, a little girl with tears in her eyes showed up at a hearing to plead for her pet duck, Gertie.
Thus was the Gertie amendment drafted into town law. Suder thinks there's also room for the Bacon exception.
"I love the town, and I'd like to stay here," she said, but not without her pig. "They know I'm gung-ho about it."
Just to drive the point home, Suder's year-end appeal to the zoning board included a 1994 Christmas poem from Phyllis Battoe, published on the Web site Pigs4Ever.com ("A Pot Belly Pig Gift and Information Center"). The poem ends:
We humans could learn a lesson well taught
By porkers in general who give us this thought.
A laugh a day, a clear conscience at night,
A slight forgiven, a wrong made right.
These things so easy for our porcine friends,
Seem to be hard lessons learned for mortal men.
In this season of Christmas, love and light,
Should we not try harder to do things right?
Potbellied pigs, originally bred in Vietnam and imported to the United States from Canada, are considerably smaller than their factory farm cousins, which can reach 1,500 pounds. They enjoyed a brief vogue as domestic pets in the 1980s, and several localities, including Seattle and Colorado Springs, have made exceptions for them. Fairfax County does not expressly forbid pigs but requires a residential lot of at least two acres.
Hundreds are abandoned every year, according to Pigs4Ever, because owners run afoul of zoning laws or lack the knowledge to care for them.
This is not the first time that Suder has had to extract Bacon from peril. They came together a couple of years ago in Richmond when a boyfriend took her to a farm for exotic animals. When she saw a worker carrying away a panicked little pig, Suder realized it was not a guest but part of the menu for the other animals.
"I panicked," she said. "I took the pig." And, soon after, dropped the boyfriend.
She shares the rented ranch home with Bacon, a new boyfriend, an over-caffeinated Jack Russell terrier named Willie and two ferrets. Everybody seems to get along.
Despite some robust snoring, Bacon sleeps in a well-cushioned corner of the bedroom. Her diet is surprisingly light: one cup a day of special food "for less active adult pigs," as the package says, although she gets scones as an occasional treat. Bacon is litter-box trained, Suder said, but prefers the back yard, where she stays. Suder doesn't walk her.
Although no one knows for sure who complained to the town, most neighbors say they have no objection to Bacon. In fact, after two noisy dogs owned by the house's previous occupant, some consider her an upgrade.
"Most of us were happy to see the pig," said Chris Smith, who has lived on Bowers Lane for 20 years. "We had visions of Arnold from 'Green Acres,' but she's pretty sweet. We hardly ever see her, to tell you the truth."
"We do have the one-chicken rule. It might be fun to have the one-pig rule," said Susan Nicholson, another longtime resident.
Bacon's prospects look fairly good. Late last week, the zoning board granted Suder a six-month continuance while town officials draft a proposed amendment to the zoning law. It would require approval by the planning commission and the Town Council.
Vice Mayor Dennis D. Husch, a veteran of the great Gertie compromise, seems willing to make room for a potbellied pig.
"My idea of a pet is something that goes meow or barks," he said. "Other people have other ideas, and we've got to be sensitive to that."
View all comments that have been posted about this article.