Cover girl Piglet finds forever home
A white pit bull featured on the cover of Best Friends' latest book
Not Left Behind is now living in a permanent home.
A little more than a year after Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf region, Piglet went home with Angenette Graham of Detroit, Michigan. It took that long to place her because Piglet suffered from severe heartworm disease and had to go through the treatments twice. Plus, Piglet doesn't like all dogs and needed to be an only pet. Once she was healthy, she was spayed and put up for adoption.
The timing turned out to be perfect. Angenette had been looking for a companion dog now that her two children are teenagers with social lives of their own. After a co-worker sent her photos of two dogs – one of which was Piglet -- Angenette drove to meet Piglet at Serenity Animal Hospital, where she was being fostered.
It was love at first sight. “She was so friendly,” Angenette said.
Piglet was rescued last September from the top of a sinking boat in a New Orleans neighborhood and was taken to Best Friends' temporary rescue center in Tylertown, Miss. From there, Dr. Karen Michalski with Serenity Animal Hospital fostered Piglet and took her to her clinic.
Now at home in the suburbs, “Piglet is spoiled,” Angenette said. “Her nails are pink and she wears her little sweater jacket. She’s like my little daughter.”
She takes Piglet for daily walks around their neighborhood, although, Angenette said, "Sometimes she leads
me on walks.”
That’s why she’s continuing the training started by Jessica Muzzarelli, an assistant at the hospital, by enrolling Piglet in an advanced class at a dog training school in nearby Farmington, where Piglet had earlier graduated from an intermediate course.
When she first adopted her in mid September, Angenette said she was thinking of changing Piglet’s name – that is, until she heard her snort for the first time. Now her new mom calls her Piggie for short. “She even snorts in her sleep,” Angenette said. “The name fits her.”
In the beginning, Piglet wasn’t used to being in a home. “But she’s settled in,” Angenette said. “She sleeps in the living room and in my bedroom. But her favorite spot in the house is next to the fireplace.”
Another favorite pastime – besides playing with her stuffed animals and tossing around a rope toy – is to stare at herself in a mirror. “She stops at all the mirrors in the house to look at herself," Angenette said. "She’s awesome.”
To see Piglet and other rescued animals in Not Left Behind
by Troy Snow, Click Here
Story by Cathy Scott. Photo, top, compliments of Serenity Animal Hospital.