The Good Good Pig by Sy Montgomery Page B

feeding pigs, I’d found, were apt to forget about Christopher’s meat taboo or his dislike of onions and citrus, and might even carelessly toss a plastic wrapper or a toothpick into the pig garbage.)
    The first afternoon after the girls moved in, they came bearing slops. I was deep in writing my monthly nature column for the
Boston Globe,
this time on what bugs do in winter. (Our house was a living laboratory of answers, with pupal cases and egg sacs in many corners, safe from my little-used vacuum cleaner.) As happened every time there was a knock at the door, Tess exploded into hysteria, shattering my concentration. Often she barked so loudly we couldn’t hear the knocking that prompted it. But in this case I knew from her tone that something truly alarming was trying to get in the house:
children.
    Tess did not trust children. Perhaps they reminded her of unruly sheep. When I opened the door, she snapped her teeth in the girls’ faces. A border collie’s snap is not a bite that misses its mark; it’s a gesture made specifically for the sound. It helps them herd sheep, like you might click your tongue to gee a horse along. Unfortunately most people don’t know this—the children start to cry and the parents shrill in alarm.
    But this is not what happened at all.
    In response to Tess’s assault, little Jane bravely stood her ground; Kate knelt to pat Tess: “Hello, Tess! Remember us?” (Tess probably did, but she also remembered Mary Pat and John, and still barked relentlessly every time our tenants entered or left the house, which was several times a day.) Over the din, Lilla tried to apologize for the interruption, and explained they’d only come to see if they could feed Christopher.
    â€œTess!” I barked, grabbing my ski jacket. “Get your Frisbee, Tess!” The tone of Tess’s voice changed from hysterical to victorious. Thanks to her barking, instead of being abducted by aliens, we would now be able to play Frisbee. Remarkably still able to bark with the toy in her mouth, Tess flew down the icy back steps with the four of us, leaping into the air to grab the disk as we tossed it to her over the crusty snow on the way to the barn.
    Christopher heard our footsteps and began to call to us: “Unhhhhhh? Nhhhhhhhhhhhhh? Nhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”
    â€œHello, Pig Man!” I answered. “Visitors!”
    We rounded the corner to the barn.
    â€œHe’s even bigger!”
    â€œLook at his ears!”
    â€œHe’s so furry!”
    â€œCan I feed him?”
    â€œOoh, please, let
me
!”
    The girls were hooked.
    After school, right off the bus, the sisters would head straight for the pen and place their uneaten lunch sandwiches into the pig’s mouth. “I don’t know why I even pack their lunch,” Lilla once joked with Howard. “I could just put it in the slops bucket right now.”

    Christopher Hogwood comes home—in front of our barn, as a baby.
Photo: Author

    Even when he began to bulk up, at first, Chris stayed about the size of a cat.
Photo: Howard Mansfield

    Quite early in life, Christopher began to probe his pen for a means of escape.
Photo: Howard Mansfield

    Off to the Pig Plateau…Chris, Tess (with Frisbee), and Sy (with slops bucket). Chris is about one and a half years old here.
Photo: Howard Mansfield

    Chris as a young adult wearing a large dog harness. Later, our cobbler friend would have to sew together the parts from several dog harnesses to accomodate Chris’s girth.
Photo: Author

    Christopher begins his career as a fashion model—this photo became the first Chris-mas card.
Photo: Bruce Curtis

    The ladies spill out of their newly completed Chicken Chalet.
Photo: Pincus Mansfield

    Chris as a young adult resting on the Pig Plateau and enjoying a belly rub
Photo: Ian Redmund

    Tess soars to catch her beloved Frisbee.
Photo: Pincus Mansfield

    Antioch biology professor Beth Kaplan and her