The Good Good Pig by Sy Montgomery

suspicious border collie, were completely absorbed in the task of petting and massaging a blissful, supine, black-and-white 250-pound hog.
    â€œThe moment I saw him,” Lilla remembers, “the cloud of anxiety and despair around our little unit just lifted away. The sensation went all over my body:
everything’s going to be all right.
”
    Our four blond heads now bent intently forward as eight hands reached to rub Chris’s pink, tight belly. Keeping time with his grunts, we repeated his favorite mantra:
    â€œGood, good pig. Good, good, goood…”

“OK—I’ M OPENING THE DOOR . A RE YOU READY?”
    Kate and Jane stood by, just off to one side of the barn and slightly uphill—a direction in which Chris was unlikely to run.
    â€œOK!” they answered. “Ready!”
    The girls knew the drill. By Christopher’s second year, we had perfected the Running of the Pig. We’d done this nearly every day that the sky had shown the least hint of sunshine and the ground was clear of snow. By now, it was a regular ritual, and its smooth operation depended on the girls’ well-honed execution of their tasks.
    One: Slops Standby. I would carry the heavy bucket, but at least one of the girls—usually both—stood ready with a particularly delectable item, such as a blueberry muffin or a bagel, with which to steer Chris if he went off course.
    Two: Wardrobe Management. Christopher had outgrown the extra-large dog harness, and now dressed for dinner in a more elaborate contraption we had to put on him after he exited the pen. It was an amalgam of previous outfits. At one point he’d worn a harness that we’d had custom-made by a manufacturer of spelunking gear, generously procured by Maggie and Graham’s daughter, Emily, who was dating a caver. But—disturbingly—it
broke.
So this became the substrate onto which bits of earlier harnesses were cleverly grafted, thanks to the skill and ingenuity of the only cobbler for miles around—a fellow whose shop was a half-hour drive away. (Chris was his only sixteen-toed client.) Kate, a fourth-grade fashion maven, carried the harness, and was the only one of us who could consistently negotiate the maze of buckles and loops necessary to put the thing on.
    Three: Border (Collie) Patrol. Jane helped me make sure that Tess, who, with her Frisbee, accompanied us on every trip we made outside for any reason, maintained her “stay” well afield of Christopher’s trajectory until the coast was clear. This was not as easy as it sounds. Even after a year with us, Tess was unconvinced we might not slip away from her. So whenever we were more than a few yards apart, Tess tried to creep ever closer to me unseen—even though once I gave the “stay” command she was invariably crouched down, immobile, every time I looked up. With Tess focused on me, and Chris on the slops I carried, an unwitting collision of the two animals was entirely possible—but for Jane. Jane’s attention was unwavering. Though she was only seven and short for her age, Jane’s sturdy determination was evident in everything she did, from her focused ferocity on the first-grade soccer team to the way she herded her free-spirited mom and older sister out the door so they would not be hopelessly late for every appointment. She was perfect for the job.
    Lastly, there was a fourth task, unstated but clearly understood: don’t get run over by the pig. We all knew this could pose a serious problem, because by the second summer of his life, Christopher Hogwood weighed well over three hundred pounds.
    A three-hundred-pound pig in the family seemed perfectly normal to me. Having children in my life, though, came as a huge surprise.
    Even for a childless couple, Howard and I had remarkably little contact with kids. Howard’s brother and sister-in-law had two fine sons, Eric and Scott, but they lived on Long Island and we