Woody was spotted running loose in Huntingdon on Thursday 11th November 2021. An army of volunteers quickly assembled to try to capture him and get him to safety. This little blonde piggy was successfully caught after a heroic and determined 4.5-hour effort by Laura and Chris and several other incredible locals.
To get him to safety, all of us in the rescue effort scrambled around in a dense bush full of holly and hawthorn brambles, and endless woody interwoven branches, with thick waxy leaves sprawling across the floor of the bush itself. In the end, as time was getting on and it was dark, my husband brought our garden shears to the rescue effort and cut a tunnel through the bush, to lay himself in it to prevent little pig running out of reach. It still took time to capture the little rascal, but eventually the human net closed in and as a team, we managed to get a hold of him.
Once we’d established he was a boy, it was almost a foregone conclusion that we would end up keeping him, and everyone else agreed. At the time of rescue, I estimated he was around 12 weeks old.
Nobody ever came forward with any knowledge of where this little pig came from.
His name, Woody, was carefully chosen, testament to his exploring and adventurous roots as well as referencing the conditions he was hiding out in. While he is known as Woody, he does have an official name just because I am a stickler for traditions, so Elwood Mungo is his “proper” name. To everyone though, he is just Woody!
Mungo was Chris’s choice and, since he was quite pivotal in the rescue, I couldn’t deny him at least giving the lad a middle name.
Serendipitous however, as his full name means “my pet from the woods”, which couldn’t be any more perfect!
