March 14, 2010, Leslie Kawamoto, who writes the animal blog (see below) for the Honolulu Advertiser newspaper was gracious enough to turn our February blog into a newspaper article!  No matter what the cause is, publicity is essential to promote education.  We met, totally by accident, through my cousins, who's dogs play together in Hawaii!  Leslie is passionate about animals and it shows!  Thanks to Leslie and the Honolulu Advertiser, we have sorta "gone back home" and reached across the Pacific Ocean to help pigs in need!  Click Here to read our article!   Too many animals get euthanized everyday and as overbred pigpets becomes a problem in the shelter system, we must step up and do something!  Education is knowledge, knowlege is key to saving any animal!  Please.... Don't breed or buy, while shelter animals have to die! 
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March 1st, 2010, was National Pig Day!  Last year we spent the day at Pigasus with 70+ live pigs and this year, we spent it "Pardoning our Porcine", Tank, Fox5 News Local at Famous Dave's, of all the places!  Yes, they are a bbq restaurant, but like they say "keep your friends close and enemies even closer!"  They were actually very cool and let us do our adoption segments right outside their door!  National PIg Day is to be celebrated in whatever way it makes you appreciate your pig(s)!  Hopefully people appreciated our live ones more!  This year will mark our first anniversay of "Pardon My Porcine" Day! 
Hopefully we will make this an annual event! 
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February 8, 2010:  We are reaching across the Pacific Ocean back home to where I grew up, to educate all people on the pros and cons of owning potbelly pigs and why it's important, we all, as a human race, adopt and spay/neuter!  Please read our Hawaii blog here!

Happy New 2010!  As we embark on a new year and a new decade, Pork Chop reminds us of our commitments to our families, to our animals and most of all to ourselves!  We lost one of our family members on New Years Eve, Groucho, my African Grey brother, who was with my mom for 23 happy years, so long, but yet not long enough.  Mom was very sad but I reminded her that the rest of us are still here and that we need her.  Life goes on, as much as we will miss Groucho mimicking mom's words and calling me "Pork Chop Pork Chop, where are you Pork Chop?"  No more of that.  But, I still have Jako and Kira, Comet and Maggie, to remind me that I'm not alone and that we all still need our mom and our family.  So rest in peace my dear brother Groucho and one day we will all see you on the other side of the rainbow bridge!  We all love you and will miss you dearly!  Please make the most of your time with the ones you love!
Wishing you all Health, Happiness and Prosperity in this new year and new decade to come!  PC
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Update:  September 1, 2009, VegasPigPets made our newspaper debut in the Spring Valley View section of our Las Vegas Review Journal newspaper.  We have received so much positive feedback and are able to assist and educate so many more owners due to this great article!  Please see the article at: http://www.viewnews.com/2009/VIEW-Sep-01-Tue-2009/SpringValley/30836098.html
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Back in 2004, when I as looking to adopt a potbelly pig for a pet, I did not find any networking available here in Las Vegas.  I found piglets in pet stores and even, of all places, the swap meet, but no one could tell me about them!  I have always adopted all my other animals, dogs, birds and even tortoises!  I tried going out of state to adopt but didn't find any pig to call my own.  After over a year of homework and looking for that special pig, I felt I had no other choices... in 2006, I brought a piglet home from a reputable breeder out of state.  I named her Pork Chop.  She was the smartest, most special creature I had ever encountered.  I had to dig further.  I was able to hook up with Pigs4Ever and took Pork Chop all the way to Reno to meet a "pig" trainer!   How hard could this be, right?  Well, finding out that pigs are like perpetual 3 year old children, I was very surprised that my prior training skills was no help with her!   Two years later I felt I had finally mastered the art of raising a pig!  She was a little overweight, a little too smart for her own good, but the most special, different animal I could have added to my family.  Because of all my hardships along the way, VegasPigPets got started in April of 2008, not by choice, but by need.  Joining a wonderful group called SCAMPP, out of Southern California, and hearing of the chatter from other pig rescue groups and sanctuaries, I knew there must be  a problem in Las Vegas!  But where was it?  It didn't take very long to find them!  Pigpets being given up to shelters, left in backyards to fend for themselves and even walking down busy streets.  It was a sad story, like so many other animals, the worsening economy, the foreclosure crisis, whatever the reason, people were leaving their pets behind.  It was a little harder for the abandoned pigs as they don't just "fit in" at the shelters!  By this time I had made a good friend out of Marlies of Pigharmony.com and she convinced me I could help these pigs needing homes.  She helped Vegaspigpets get started, networking and finding resources that could help, even hundreds of miles away.  A whole network of pig owners, rescuers and sanctuaries!  Somehow people got my email, my phone number and finally our website was born!  It still saddens me to see how bad the problem is and how much worse it is still becoming, but we can all do something, even if it is one pigpet at a time!  Our 501(c)(3) was approved in December, 2008, so full blast forward we went to get the word out that there was help in Las Vegas!  People started to volunteer to help, foster homes were found and people stepped up to provide permanent homes for pigs in need!  Our website has provided a valuable resource for pigpet owners in Las Vegas and surrounding areas that felt just like me, nowhere to turn, no one to ask, no one to provide guidance, but now a network is born!  How one little piglet named Pork Chop started a whole organization of people still amazes me, but everyday I look at my not-so-little girl and thank her for opening up a new world of wonderful people and resources!  If we all just help one animal that cannot help themselves or stop one unnecessary pregnancy by spaying and neutering our pets, we all may one day say that we helped eliminate the unnecessary euthanization of all pets!
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Groucho, my dearest African Grey parrrot, died on New Years Eve 2009.  He was with us for 23 short years, but his laughing, his dancing, his impecable timing for saying "words" while people are talking on the phone will surely be missed for a long time to come.
My wonderful Groucho, we love you so much!  Rest in peace...


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