The Early Story of Bandit, His Journey to Loving Farm Sancturary
He lived alone for months on the burned out hillsides of Ojai- a town hit hard by wildfires in 2018. He was a baby pig someone had bred to be eaten and yet no one was trying to catch him. He was just a “product” that was forgotten and abandoned. After months of fending for himself, and scrounging for food, he was captured and taken to a dog and cat shelter.
Pigs, and other farmed animals, frequently end up in “companion animal” shelters and no one claims them. Oftentimes these are “open admission” shelters where options are few and time is short before an animal is euthanized. This particular dog & cat shelter didn’t know what to do with this young pig, but they were kind to him, and they treated him like a dog. They also reached out extensively on social media and we will be forever grateful.
Pigs are very social and they need buddies. He didn’t have a pig buddy, but he was handled and socialized by people. That shelter contacted Loving Farm. At the time we had space. A Good Samaritan offered a generous donation to help with transport, vet treatment that included neutering, and building our new piggy a shelter. We were also able to adopt 2 other pigs close to his age. We didn’t want him to grow up alone because he was too small to integrate immediately with our adult pigs. We drove 3 hours to adopt this little guy. We named him Bandit because he steals the heart of everyone who meets him…including ours!
Today Bandit is almost a year old. He is a wonderful Animal Ambassador who helps us educate about the suffering of pigs born to be slaughtered. Bandit is now big enough to spend his days in a large paddock with our 4 adult pigs. But when the sun goes down…Bandit waits at the gate where his smaller buddies (Amelia and Winston) live…so he can sleep with “his babies.”
Every pig is an individual. Every pig deserves a loving forever home.
