“Thank you Gladewater Police Department for being patient and getting my piggy back home after they busted out the gate today!” Dixon praised in a social media shoutout to GPD and its officers. “Squints came home on his own, but Wendy had to be convinced.”
The footage quickly warmed hearts online as Smith led Wendy, a stout animal, following Cowan back to the Dixon’s residence. Squints, dwarfed by his big sister, rushes to greet them.
Naturally, GPD Chief Kyle Ready and his team have heard all the punchlines. He’s just glad the local livestock ended up safe and sound and that his personnel were none the worse for wear after corralling the critters with a little snack.
“Yeah, they came back to the PD and grabbed some cabbage and carrots,” Ready said Friday. “They liked the carrots, not the cabbage.”
Typically, such calls fall to Animal Control Officer Shelly Godwin, but last year the ACO system was brought back under the police department umbrella. Officers are quick to lend a hand, albeit on rare occasions.
“It doesn’t happen that often. Every three or four months, cows get out, maybe horses. Pigs are rare,” Ready said. “Domesticated, potbellied pigs are very rare.”
Last year, in June, officers wrangled a 9-foot alligator that took a stroll far from its home on the Sabine River bottoms. Needless to say, this week’s call was a breeze by comparison.
“They said these pigs have gotten out a couple of times the past several months,” Ready said, but Wendy and Squints knew where they belonged: “They were not a problem at all.”
GPD officers bring locals’ porky pets all the way home
A pair of Gladewater Police officers wrangled some swaggering swine Wednesday, cracking all the requisite jokes along the way.
Officers Sean Smith and Nicole Cowan saved the bacon of a pair of porkers on the loose from local Tasha Dixon’s house. They’re Kune Kune pigs, and the livestock’s brush with law enforcement ended on a leash – and on camera – as the officers brought ‘Wendy’ and ‘Squints’ home to their fenced-in yard.