Pig makes annual move to summer home in Vermont

PLAINFIELD, Vt. -- Sky the pig is living the good life. Children pamper him with back scratches and hose him down when it gets too hot. He winters at a cozy bed-and-breakfast and summers in a lush hilltop retreat.

Not bad for a swine who started life as a piglet slated to become pork.

Six years have passed since then, and Sky now weighs 800 pounds. On Sunday, in a yearly rite of spring, owner Richard Rubin and four pig movers used force and persuasion to transport Sky to his summer home.

It took the crew 10 minutes to dislodge Sky from his indoor stall at the Hollingworth Hill Farm bed-and-breakfast and corral the indignantly protesting pig into a horse trailer.

If Sky is treated a bit like royalty, he has someone very special to thank: Rubin's daughter Amanda, who was 14 when Sky entered the household as a 7-week-old piglet.

By the time autumn rolled around and it was time for pigs all over Vermont to go to slaughter, Amanda vetoed plans to kill him.

"It was like I was suggesting that we eat one of our other children," Rubin said.

So Rubin kept Sky, who already weighed 200 pounds when he won his reprieve.

The home Sky returned to is idyllic. The spacious fenced enclosure in Rubin's back yard has a sweeping view of fields and mountains. There is a mud puddle to wallow in, a small house for shelter and the friendship of Rubin's dog.

In the winter, Sky moves back to the farm in Marshfield, where owners Bob and Lee Light make a place for him in their barns with their own pigs, chickens, and cows.

Many people ask Rubin, a trial lawyer, why he and his wife bother to keep a pet pig.

"Some people might say that it's kind of wasteful to spend money on a pig," he said. "Well, people have all kinds of habits or hobbies."

And he's nice to have around, Rubin said.

"He's always glad to see me," he said. "He's not fawning like a dog."