08/07/2014
Four adult Vietnamese pot belly pigs were part of a rescue by the SPCA and unbeknown to anyone the female pig was pregnant and gave birth to four piglets the very next day.
Shakespeare was born on the 16th August 2007 at the grave yard of the SPCA Grassy Park.
Animal Planet was in South Africa to do an African series of Animal Cops and this rescue formed part of the series.
The SPCA placed an ad in a local newspaper for the adoption of the pigs, and an anonymous person had cut out the ad and placed it in my letter box.
I looked at the ad and thought ‘no way’ I already have a pig named Bella-Donna and she
Being temperamental was quite a handful.
Well after receiving two further cut outs of the ad I became curious and went to visit the piglets and destiny had me in its grip.
There was only one piglet left for adoption, a little boy, who according to the SPCA staff was the cheekiest so I took him home on the 20 October 2007.
He was so wild and needed to be socialized so I kept him with me at all times and he slept in my bed under the duvet sharing the space with several cats.
He nipped me on the ankle the first night but soon became accustomed to sharing a bed and then gravitated to placing his head on the pillows.
He traveled with me everywhere in my car in a picnic basket with the lid open, seat belt fastened and radio on .He adored music whilst watching the world go by.
We went to visit Bella-Donna every day to introduce him but all he could think of was milk and teats!! She was not in the least accommodating and would run away the moment he came into her premises.
I had not yet decided on a name for him as I wanted to see what his personality was about. Then I received a telephone call from the producers of ‘Animal Cops’ who said they had chosen my piglet to form part of the series and enquired what his name was. I looked at the book shelves for inspiration and the huge tome of the complete works of Shakespeare glared at me and so he was christened Shakespeare.
This I thought would be a mouth full, but never have I so appropriately named an animal.
Shakespeare proved to be the epitome of intelligence, a charismatic soul with a delightful sense of humour, loving gentle, amazingly obedient and a fastidious cleaner. You will see in the photos that he is a keen literary figure and the first book he showed interest in was The Myriad-Minded Man, Rabindranath Tagore!!!
Shakespeare to this day loves to be groomed. Twice a day he is brushed, he also has his own tooth brush and kiddie’s toothpaste, the only problem is he does not want to rinse his mouth out after brushing his pearly whites but prefers to savor the tooth paste .His hooves are also manicured and polished and his snout is moisturized with vitamin E cream.
He loves nothing more than this daily ritual of sprucing up.
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When Shakespeare was 6 months old it was time for him to move to the animal sanctuary and join Bella-Donna.
However, unfortunately Bella-Donna was not captivated by Shakespeare’s abundant personality and she was totally intolerant of him so I had to sub-divide the plot, fence it and purchase another chalet.
Around this time, Maxi the dog arrived on the scene and they became close companions and we would go for long walks and they would play tirelessly together.
Shakespeare loved life and everything and everyone in it and it did not matter what the species, he only demonstrated pure love and happiness sheer eau de vie. Fear was not in his paradigm.
Once we were walking along a foot path and cyclist went by, to my astonishment Shakespeare started to run and caught up with the cyclist and began to jog next to him.
He was fascinated by this strange two wheeled creature. The cyclist could not believe his eyes!!
Six months later another little piglet rescue arrived at the sanctuary. Her name is Camelot.
I was careful not to make a fuss over the new baby as I realized that Shakespeare would be mortified that my attention was directed else where. So I created a song to the tune of frere Jacqua with the lyrics “Shakespeare’s mommy’s baby, Camelot’s’ Shakespeare’s baby”. This he understood immediately and took it upon himself to teach Camelot everything he knew. He obeyed all my instructions and she was to obey his!
Further down the line two guinea fowl keets all of a day old, (rescued out the mouth of a feral cat) would follow the pigs around and often go for a ride on the pigs back and sleep on top of them. Camelot adored the grooming of the guineas but Shakespeare preferred his Pears & Mason brush.
A year later a rescued pony was stabled in the property next door to the sanctuary. The owner of the pony had to go overseas on a work assignment and this new neighbour was
distraught from being alone, so Shakespeare gathered up Camelot and walked next door to the stable and both lay down next to the pony who immediately stopped crying. Another deep bond was formed.
Just before Shakespeare’s 5th birthday I noticed a small lump on his jowl which appeared to have come over night. Alarmed, I contacted a vet who came out to see him and was mystified as to what the lump could be. So he was given a shot of penicillin in the hope that this would sort it out. It did not and over the course of a year he was administered various medicines which did nothing other than provide side effects.
The lump was insidiously increasing in size and now appeared to be bothering him.
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After what seemed to be hundreds of phone calls and enquiries through out the country to elicit a vet who specialized in pigs (there aren’t any) I heard about a woman vet who also
Had a pet pig, this was my best shot as she not only had veterinary skills she understood the nature and complexity of pigs (their physiology is closest to humans).
This lady vet was in dialogue with my existing vet, well informed she came to visit Shakespeare.
It was in the middle of winter, icy cold with continual rain. What is normally lush grass had become marsh.
The vet arrived with a veterinary nurse and medical equipment. It was clear to her that a biopsy of the lump was necessary to enable a diagnosis. Shakespeare was sedated and anaesthetized. A surgical cloth was placed on his body and the surgical instruments were laid out on his back. Deep incisions were made into the jowl in order to retrieve tissue samples.
This was a long process and as the day grew colder it became very overcast and there was little light in his chalet. With no electricity the light of a cell phone torch was used. Inside his little chalet under these circumstances what was performed was remarkable.
The tissue samples were sent to the laboratory for examination and on the 5th July 2012 the results of tests came back. It is a typical infiltrative lipoma with well-differentiated lipocytes displacing the normal subcutaneous stroma and show extensive infiltration and displacement of the underlying muscle.
These are malignant lesions which do not show metastic spreading but may reveal extensive local infiltration and excision is almost impossible.
This was devastating news, I could not believe that Shakespeare had cancer and there was nothing we could do to fix this. A large chunk of my heart evaporated and a light went out.
There was no further medication just salmon oil and bucchu to act as an anti-inflammatory. Incredibly his condition improved and by his 5th Birthday he was his stoic charming self and life resumed its wondrous course.
In the meantime he has been god father to all the accumulated rescues, Romeo the donkey, Rosa the pig, Apollo and Aphrodite the Guinea fowl, 20 rabbits, 36 ducks, the dogs Maxi, Zuma, Ringo, and Otis. And friend and play mate to many more.
By Shakespeare’s 6th Birthday in August 2013 the lump had become visibly much larger and it seems to continue to grow. Despite this he has an incredible appetite and smiles back at the world.
Unfortunately we lost Shakespeare earlier in 2014.
