Less Devil Swine Among Us: Aggressive Mini-Pig Goes to Children’s School, Becomes Bacon

A hippie in England, who owned a semi-feral mini-boar as a pet, was shocked to learn that the boar is now bacon.  The Daily Mail Online reports that Rita Dell was given the black hog, which is not all that mini, frankly, as shown in the picture laying by her, by her parents.  She kept it at home until it apparently got lonely at home.  Though, there is nothing explaining what that meant.  There is no explanation of whether the hog, named Marmite – which incidentally is the name for a food spread, which is what he is now, or at least part of him is now – was doing to show that he was lonely.  Was he tearing up the house, peeing indoors, attacking people or other animals?  All these are behavior associated with lonely animals.  And, seriously, hogs are not domestic animals. They are livestock, or they are beer-stealing, drunk, wrecking machines. 

Marmite: Potential wrecking machine

Either way, Ms. Dell took Marmite to a local school that had a few other pigs, so he could hang out with them.  She apparently visited him a few times a week, or at least drove by, and then he wasn’t there anymore.  He was bacon.

The School says that Marmite got aggressive.  He bit a staff member and tried to bite a kid.  They tried to get Ms. Dell to pick Marmite up.  They tried to give him away.  No farmer would take him.  The slaughter house would.  They couldn’t just let him out, because then he’d be a feral hog and liable to get into people’s beer and go on a rampage, since he was already showing himself to be aggressive.  Get some Pabst Blue Ribbon in him and he was gonna go all Dennis Hopper in Blue Velvet.

So they made Marmite into non-vegetarian Marmite. 

Ms. Dell was pissed, as could be expected if you sent your pet to hang out at a children’s school, and you’re a vegetarian (like she reportedly is) and your pet becomes food for someone else. The School wasn’t having it: 

Headteacher Mike Fairclough said: 'After a few weeks the new pig became extremely aggressive and attacked our two other pigs. It also bit the site manager and tried to bite a child.

'We contacted our vet and were advised to remove the pig from our site for the health and safety of the children and the other animals.

'The previous owners were contacted by the school to notify them of this development, but at no point did they offer to have it back or to help rehouse it.

Marmite, looking cute, deceiving

So, there’s a dispute.  There’s also one less aggressive mini-pig that was attacking little kids.  I can see both sides.  I feel Ms. Dell’s pain.  If she really liked her pig and it was lonely, she should have gotten a second pig, not pawned it off on a grade school, though. Once it’s their problem, if they can’t reach you, it’s their solution.  And their solution was to make Marmite into bacon-flavored marmite.