HERE, PIGGY PIGGY PIGGY

Piggy the robin rested on Shelly Penny's hand on the deck of her home in Cape Girardeau.

When Shelly Penny of Cape Girardeau whistles and calls for Piggy, she's not expecting a four-legged creature to come running.

She's actually calling a month-old robin to come home. Her son Steven, 16, rescued the bird from the water park in Jackson.

Steven was working at the park when he discovered the tiny bird flailing in the water. Evidently it had fallen from its nest, gone down the slide and ended up in the pool.

A quick phone call home brought Mom to the rescue.

"I'm a sucker for animals," admits Penny. So far the family has rescued snakes, raccoons, bunnies, a multitude of puppies and kittens, an owl and a bat.

Steven and his brother Sam, 12, are quite good at bringing home strays.

"We first try to figure out where an animal came from," said Penny. The boys always ask to keep the kittens and puppies if a home can't be found.

"If there's a collar, it's definitely a no stay," said Penny.

"Wild animals should be returned to nature," says Penny. And that's just what she's doing for Piggy. "It would be most unkind to clip his wings and make him stay inside when he belongs in the wild."

Bird books didn't have a great deal of advice to offer on raising robins. Knowing that a mother bird regurgitates the food for her young, Penny decided on chicken and noodle baby food for the tiny bird.

Red wigglers were soon added to the menu.

"We'd sneak one in with the baby food and once he got the hang of eating worms, it was no more baby food."

Piggy's first meal came around 9 a.m., and he would continue to be fed throughout the day about every hour and a half.

Piggy acquired his name the way most humans acquire a nickname. He was soon devouring 10 worms an hour.

His first encounter with night-crawlers, a robin delicacy, proved to be quite an experience. "The worm was longer than he was. He'd swallow some and a little would crawl back out. Finally we broke the worm in half," said Penny.

Despite his early encounter with water, the trauma doesn't seem to have had an lasting effects. He enjoys taking his bath in the bowl of water Penny sets out for him.

As Piggy began his road to recovery, he also took on a better appearance. "When we first got him he didn't hardly have any pin feathers. He was really kind of ugly," said Penny.

The tail feathers were the last to come and those were necessary for navigation.

As soon as he was able to fly around the house, Penny started to take Piggy outside.

At first he wouldn't venture much farther than the top of the patio table umbrella.

"Sam took him out one day and threw him up in the air, but he would just fly right back," she said. Finally Piggy made it to a tree branch. A lot of happy tweeting and chirping followed.

Piggy wasn't ready to give up the comforts of home just yet. Every evening around 7:30 he would tap on the patio door to let the family know he wanted back in and fed.

Piggy spent his nights in a cage on the kitchen table looking out the patio door.

But like all children who grow and eventually leave the nest, Piggy has begun to sprout his wings, so to speak.