(happy upbeat music) - I'm Vicky.

- And I'm Josiah.

- And this is our pig, Maddie.

A vet came into the barn (dramatic gentle music) where I kept my horses with a pregnant sow and asked if we could keep her until she gave birth to the piglets, and she had 14.

Maddie was the runt of the litter.

She couldn't get enough food.

She couldn't nurse, and she was getting very weak.

She would either die or one of us would take her and try to feed her and try to keep her.

And I was the one who did that.

- And you said it was only for overnight and here we are.

- Here we are.

- I have a photo of her (happy upbeat music) in the palm of my hand when she first came home.

She was tiny.

- I spoke with our local equine vets that we use and they said, "Go ahead, get the milk replacement and feed her with a syringe."

She was lucky and she was a strong, little pig and she did survive, but she definitely would not have had she not been hand-fed by me and Josiah.

So for people that didn't know much about pigs, I think we did okay.

The one thing I was told about pigs was that if you do take on a piglet or a pig,- - [Man] Mm-hmm.

- they will make you laugh every single day.

And I can say that's true.

As a piglet, she was curious.

She was curious, she was cute.

She would like to nibble on us, particularly Josiah.

- [Man] Mm-hmm.

- I think she was really trying to nurse on Josiah, not me.

(laughs) (Josiah laughs) I would say one of the most unfortunate challenges was housebreaking her.

I think it took about a full year and as she got bigger it became a bigger problem.

- It's never a good thing.

(laughs) - It was getting perhaps close to us not being able to keep her in the house or at all.

- Yeah.

(person laughs) (Vicky laughs) - However, if she needs to go out, she will ring a bell that we have on the front door.

And if Josiah is in his office or I'm upstairs, and we hear that, we know that is serious.

We need to get down there- - [Josiah] Yeah.

- and let her out.

I think the big milestone was after about four months, we couldn't wait for her to eat on her own.

I kept thinking, when is it ever going to happen?

And finally it did.

Her first solid food was a blueberry off our bushes in the back.

(Josiah laughs) And she did start drinking her formula from a dish.

You know, just like with a human baby, it was a big moment.

- So we have dogs and when Maddie came, it would be interesting to see how the dogs would react to this tiny piglet.

Teddy, our black lab, he could care less.

He might sniff the pig and walk away.

But Charlotte, who is a very small dog, thought she was gonna be the boss until Maddie became the bigger of the two.

Charlotte and Maddie would play in her pen.

They chase each other around.

We had some tubes set up for her to play in and run through.

A lot of fun for both.

- It was like having a puppy.

- Yeah.

- As she grew, I really think she patterned her behavior off of our dog's behavior.

A lotta times we do take the dogs and Maddie together all- - [Josiah] Mm-hmm.

- for a walk into the woods behind our house.

And there's that moment where it makes me smile because there's such a motley crew.

(Josiah laughs) They're such an unlikely- - Large, medium, small and diverse.

- Yeah, they're a little Disney movie.

(laughs) When it comes to food, she eats just about anything.

- [Josiah] Oh, yeah.

- She would eat anything, but we try to keep it low calorie.

She grazes on grass.

That's pretty much her thing.

- I've seen her actually eating dead leaves- - It's helpful right?

- [Josiah] in the fall.

- 'Cause she picks them up.

- Yeah.

(laughs) - They say that pigs are seven times more intelligent than dogs.

They're very clever.

- Mm-hmm, and creative.

- I think they're more creative.

- Yeah, when she's inside, if you give her paper bags- - Tissue paper.

- Tissue paper, her blankets.

- That is a thing with pigs, they love their beds.

They love to put things in their beds and she does.

She has her two little purses- - [Josiah] Decorate.

(laughs) - that she puts in her bed and her tissue paper decorations.

- She actually will bury herself under blankets and she likes to be cozy.

- For us it's always been, how can we help to mitigate the effects of global warming?

What can we do?

And one thing we decided to do a long time ago was not eat factory farmed meat, which creates methane.

Now, after living with an animal that people eat frequently, we really see it as harmful, not just to the environment, but to the animals themselves.

- They're feeling, thinking, living creatures.

We have no business, is my opinion, in eating these animals, but it's not gonna change overnight.

- We're making our voice heard.

- A statement.

- Yeah.

(car whooshes) (happy upbeat music)