Minipigish
May. 2nd, 2011 10:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cyphomandraMatt Whyman, Oink! My life with minipigs. YA writer adds to chaos of home life (4 kids, 1 dog, 2 (initially) cats and assorted chickens) in Sussex by agreeing to his wife’s desire to acquire two minipigs. Problems ensue, many of which seem all too predictable, but it was entertainingly written and just the thing for reading on the plane from Sydney shortly after the earthquake.
The ending is a bit odd, though, and is not entirely convincing; having not had enough with just coping with the minipigs, and having neutered Butch (the male, cuter, minipig), the author goes on a quest through various dodgy venues for minipig semen to breed Roxi (female pig) via artificial insemination, only to decide not to do it after stuffing up the first two attempts anyway, and then a touching reconciliation with his wife ensues (and, at some point, there are some local ne’er-do-wells who attempt to steal the pig and are repelled by a terribly competent neighbour). Given the amount of bureaucratic paperwork associated with just getting the minipigs just described, I was a little surprised that breeding them was apparently completely okay, and also given that the author has just discovered that the breeder they bought their pigs from lied to them and has gone out of business, it all seemed misguided at best and, ahem, possibly more fictional than the rest of the memoir. Still. This is also a man who, when his first dog grows out of the cute puppy stage and becomes uncontrollable, enrols her for a month-long residential program without any family members present; it appears to have worked, but again it seemed like an extreme first response.
The ending is a bit odd, though, and is not entirely convincing; having not had enough with just coping with the minipigs, and having neutered Butch (the male, cuter, minipig), the author goes on a quest through various dodgy venues for minipig semen to breed Roxi (female pig) via artificial insemination, only to decide not to do it after stuffing up the first two attempts anyway, and then a touching reconciliation with his wife ensues (and, at some point, there are some local ne’er-do-wells who attempt to steal the pig and are repelled by a terribly competent neighbour). Given the amount of bureaucratic paperwork associated with just getting the minipigs just described, I was a little surprised that breeding them was apparently completely okay, and also given that the author has just discovered that the breeder they bought their pigs from lied to them and has gone out of business, it all seemed misguided at best and, ahem, possibly more fictional than the rest of the memoir. Still. This is also a man who, when his first dog grows out of the cute puppy stage and becomes uncontrollable, enrols her for a month-long residential program without any family members present; it appears to have worked, but again it seemed like an extreme first response.
