Lily to the Rescue: Two Little Piggies

by W. Bruce Cameron

  I sat up with my ears perked high. Crinkly bags are excellent for having treats in them!

  Sure enough, Maggie Rose began taking things out of the bag and putting them in her mouth. I sniffed but could not smell anything particularly delicious.

  “Want a blueberry, Lily?” Maggie Rose asked me. She held out her hand. There was a small dark fruit in her palm, but it did not interest me.

  The two pigs ran over to see what we were doing. They couldn’t jump up on the couch like me, but they stretched their necks as high as they could. Their little snouts were twitching like mad. “Hey, Mom,” Maggie Rose asked, “can I feed Scamper and Dash some blueberries?”

  Mom and Dad glanced at each other. “Sure, why not?” Mom agreed.

  My girl held out fruits in each hand, one for Scamper, and one for Dash. The pigs shoved their mouths right into her open palms and scarfed them up. Maggie Rose laughed. “They love blueberries!” she sang.

  Mom stood and walked over. Scamper and Dash were not doing Sit because they were pigs and not dogs, but they were trying to do something like it with their eyes, staring up at my girl eagerly.

  “Do you think I could have some of those blueberries?” Mom asked.

  Maggie Rose handed over the crinkly bag that had been so disappointing to me. Mom went to the refrigerator and pulled out a bottle. The refrigerator at home has wonderful smells that charge out into the room every time the door is open, but the one here at Work is much less interesting.

  I perked up when I caught the scent of what Mom was pouring into the bowl on the counter. It was some of that rich, fragrant milk that the pigs were always eating. Food in a bottle might be for Scamper and Dash, but food in a bowl was for a good dog!

  Scamper and Dash must have known this because they turned and headed out the door and down the hall, probably to jump on Brewster or knock over some furniture.

  I was disappointed to see Mom toss some of Maggie Rose’s fruits into my bowl of milk. I decided, though, that I could lap up the milk and leave the little fruits. This is just one of the things dogs must learn to do.

  “Maggie Rose,” Mom said. “Can you hold on to Lily for just a moment?”

  I heard my name and figured that Mom was telling my girl that I was finally about to be fed some of the delicious milk. Then Maggie Rose wrapped her arms around me, holding me on her lap. That was a strange thing to do, because now I couldn’t get at the bowlful of milk!

  “Good dog,” my girl said to me.

  Good dog? Good dog? What happened next was not the sort of thing that should happen to a good dog!

  “Okay!” Mom said. “Scamper! Dash! Come have some breakfast.”

  My new pig friends had learned their names a little bit and came racing into the room, either because Mom had called them or because they just felt like it.

  That’s how they did things. They were not like dogs, who must pay attention to what people want. They were just crazy pigs, who thought their job should be to run around and then have milk even though a good dog doesn’t get any.

  Mom put the big bowl down on the floor, and I naturally surged forward, but my girl’s hands held me still. What were we doing?

  Scamper and Dash shoved their noses into my dog bowl. Milk went flying everywhere, and my pig friends started to eat my treat! What were they doing?

  “The blueberries worked!” Mom exclaimed.

  Dad was smiling. “This could change our lives forever,” he said with a laugh. “No more bottle-feeding around the clock!”

  I did not understand why Mom and Dad seemed so happy when right in front of their eyes these pigs were taking my treat.

  “They love blueberries,” Maggie Rose said with a cheerful grin.

  I looked at her in dismay. She did not seem at all unhappy that these pigs were busily making sure that I would not get any milk from my bowl.

  Soon, Scamper and Dash were done ruining my morning and took off running again. Maggie Rose released me, and I went over and sniffed the bowl, licking up a few drops of milk that were splattered on the floor. It was as delicious as I had supposed.

  I mournfully examined the now clean bowl, smelling the remnants of some of Maggie Rose’s fruits as well the faintest hint of my milk, all gone to the pigs.

  That night at dinner, I sprawled forlornly under the table, thinking about how wonderful it would have been to have my milk. Mom said both pigs’ names, and I figured that was what the family was discussing: how Scamper and Dash had gobbled up my food by mistake while Maggie Rose forgot to let go of me.

  “I have that appointment up in the foothills tomorrow,” Dad said. “I’ll take Maggie Rose and Lily with me.” I raised my head at my name but otherwise didn’t react. There really was nothing surprising to me about the fact that everyone was sitting at the dinner table discussing what a good dog I am.

  “From what you said about the ranch, it seems promising,” Mom replied.

  “Can I go?” Bryan asked.

  “You boys both have soccer,” Mom replied.

  “Is it a pig ranch?” Maggie Rose asked.

  “No,” Dad said. “But it might work out for Scamper and Dash. The rancher wants their manure for his compost. Up in the hills, it’s tough to get a good compost heap going because it’s so dry. If they try to add food scraps, it’ll just attract raccoons or other scavengers.”

  “What’s compost?” Maggie Rose asked.

  “Oh, it’s stuff like dead leaves or grass clippings and leftover food and animal manure, too,” Dad replied. “It’ll become natural fertilizer if you let it rot in just the right way. So Scamper and Dash can help with that.

  “He says he’s got an electrified, fenced-in pen that he can move each day for them. They’ll do what pigs do, which is to churn the soil underneath their feet. Pigs love to wallow in mud. So it’ll be good for everyone— at least, that’s what he claims. We’ll have to see.”

  6

  The next day, we took Scamper and Dash for a car ride!

  Dad drove. Maggie Rose and I sat in the back seat, where I could keep an eye on the pigs who were in their cage in the far back. They made a lot of squealing noises when we first started driving, but then they settled down for a nap.

  They liked to sleep on top of each other, and I noticed that when Scamper twitched her ears, Dash twitched her ears at exactly the same time. This is not something dogs do. If I move my ears, Brewster doesn’t move his.

  Was this why the pigs were given milk and I wasn’t? Did my human family think that twitching ears deserved a treat, just like Maggie Rose gives me a treat for doing Roll Over?

  It is hard to tell what people are thinking sometimes. Ear twitching didn’t seem like much of a trick, but then again, neither did Roll Over, when I thought about it.

  We drove for some time, and I figured we were headed back to where I’d first met my little pig friends, a place with food smells and clothing hanging down for Bryan and Craig to push over. Instead, we wound up at a spot that smelled powerfully of cows and horses.

  We parked in the shade of a large tree, and Maggie Rose and Dad and I jumped out. Scamper and Dash had woken up, but they stayed where they were, lifting their noses inside their cage.

  A man in dusty clothing came over and held out his hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Cleveland,” Dad told him. “I’m James Murphy. This is my daughter, Maggie Rose.”

  “Call me Owen,” the man replied.

  My nose was up and twitching like mad. I could smell animals, but I could not see any.

  “I’m sure glad you’re here,” the man in dusty pants said. “My boy found an abandoned fawn, and we were thinking we needed to call somebody, and then I remembered that I was getting a visit from a game warden today.” I felt Dad stiffen, and Maggie Rose and I both glanced at him curiously.

  “Did you touch it?” Dad asked.

  Dirty Pants Man shook his head. “Nope, but she’s clearly starving.”

  “I need to see it right now,” Dad said. “Ca
n you take me to it?”

  Maggie Rose put my leash on my collar. Dad opened the back of our truck, lifted out the cage, and set Scamper and Dash on the ground in the shade. They charged up to the door and looked like they were waiting to get out and run around.

  Dad, however, did not let them out. This was a time for dogs, not pigs, to walk with people.

  We followed the man across some ground toward a stand of lush trees. His clothing gave off clouds of dust as he walked.

  That’s when I saw the horses standing at a fence and staring at us. They seemed surprised that there could be anything so wonderful as a dog visiting their home. I wanted to trot over and sniff them and say hello, but my job was to be with my girl, and she was with Dad.

  “What do we do, Dad?” Maggie Rose asked. “If the deer is starving?”

  Dad rubbed his jaw. “Well, a doe will leave a newborn fawn alone by itself for as much as twelve hours at a time. I suspect that we’re not dealing with a starving animal, probably just a newborn who hasn’t yet fed enough to get any meat on her bones.”

  I think I was probably the first one to smell it: a new creature, female, young, furry but not a dog. I had met an animal who smelled like this once before, something with long legs that Dad had called a deer.

  The man with the dirty pants slowed, crouched, and pointed. I guessed that he could smell the deer, too. “See? Right there, under that tree.”

  I could see the thing now. It was small, a little smaller than I am. It had big dark eyes and ears that stuck out from its head. It wasn’t moving at all—like a dog who has been told to do Stay.

  Painted over this foreign creature’s scent was another smell, the same sort of animal, but different—bigger, older. Also, I could detect an odd, faint, milky odor as well.

  It reminded me of when Scamper and Dash would climb on top of Brewster and irritate him out of his nap. After they had roused him, the pigs would smell a tiny bit like Brewster, and he would smell a tiny bit like them. That’s what I supposed might have happened here. This small deer had been napping with another, older one.

  That did not explain the milk, though. Perhaps earlier, Dirty Pants Man had been here with a bottle of milk. It was discouraging to think that all these animals were being given milk but a dog wasn’t.

  See?” Dirty Pants Man whispered. “The poor thing is like to starving.”

  “No,” Dad replied. “It’s what I’d thought: this fawn was just born yesterday. Its mother left it here to go forage. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s very close by, watching us.”

  As we were sitting there, I picked up a new hint of the odor that was on the little deer. The animal that had been lying with it was somewhere over in a deeper stand of trees. I looked and could not see it, but I sure could smell it! The milk odor was also stronger, too, now that I knew to sniff for it.

  “So the baby deer is okay, Dad?” Maggie Rose asked.

  “Yes,” Dad replied. “All we need to do is leave it alone. Its mother will take care of the rest.”

  Dad straightened up, and that’s when I caught the faintest movement. There it was—a bigger deer, just like the small one except for its size. It was staring at us without moving a muscle. Maybe it was like Brewster and didn’t like to move any more than it had to.

  Dirty Pants Man smiled. “Well, you learn something new every day,” he said. “I for sure thought I needed to help it.”

  “Don’t worry, this happens all the time,” Dad replied. “People mean well, and when they see a newborn fawn, they think it must be abandoned because they’re so skinny and aren’t moving, as if they’re too weak to stand up. But that’s their instinct. The fawn couldn’t possibly run away from predators, so all it can do is lie still and hope nothing spots it. Often, people bring a baby deer to us at the wildlife refuge, but it’s very hard to raise them by hand. It’s almost always best to leave them where they are.”

  We were done looking at the little creature and smelling the other one in the woods, because we turned away and headed back. The man with the dusty pants walked with us to our truck.

  “So, don’t you think this would be a good place for your rescue piglets?” the man asked.

  “Well, that depends,” Dad replied.

  7

  I did Sit because apparently Dad and Dirty Pants Man were planning to talk for a while.

  “See,” Dad explained, “I didn’t realize you were so close to the foothills. Probably a lot of predators up there that might come down if they pick up the scent of pigs. Does your portable cage have a lid on it?”

  “A lid?” the man replied slowly. “Nope, didn’t think I’d need one. They aren’t flying pigs, are they?”

  The men laughed.

  Maggie Rose spoke up. “The lid is to keep out animals that can climb, like mountain lions. And eagles, even, if the pigs are little.”

  “That’s my game warden girl,” Dad said with a smile. “She’s absolutely right.”

  The man shook his head. “Too bad. Well, I hope you find these little ladies a good home.”

  Dad picked up the cage with the little pigs in it and put it in the truck. Maggie Rose and I and Dad got in, but the man with the dirty pants did not, so he probably didn’t want to take a car ride with a couple of pigs in the back.

  “Well, I do appreciate you setting me straight about that little fawn. I thought it was starving for sure,” he told us.

  “You’re welcome,” Dad replied.

  Dad started the truck, and with a wave from my girl, we all drove away.

  “You were absolutely right about the cage, Maggie Rose,” Dad said. “I bet Mr. Cleveland doesn’t think about predators because he mostly has horses and cows. Mountain lions won’t attack a herd of big animals unless they’re desperate, and both horses and cows can protect their young. But Scamper and Dash are almost defenseless.”

  “We can’t let anything happen to the pigs,” Maggie Rose declared firmly.

  “I know, Maggie Rose. There’s another rancher who responded to our posting,” Dad said. “We’re headed there now. Maybe he’ll have a better situation.”

  I grew sleepy as we drove, but I was unable to nap because Scamper and Dash kept squealing and jumping around in their cage.

  We stopped again at a new place and got out. It smelled a lot like where we had just been. There was the distinct odor of horses on the air, and I saw a few of them walking in the grass.

  Horses do not know how to play fun games the way dogs do. I have never seen one chase a ball or wrestle with others in the park. All they do is stand around and look at one another or at the grass they are chewing on. One dog is more fun than all the horses I’ve ever seen in my life put together.

  A man came out of his house as Dad lifted out the cage with the pigs in it and put it on the ground again. Next to the man, there was a boy who looked like he was Maggie Rose’s age.

  The boy ran up to us and then stopped. “Hi.”

  Maggie Rose looked at the ground for a moment, maybe trying to figure out what it was that horses found so fascinating about grass. “Hi,” she said.

  “My name’s Bobby,” the boy told her.

  “I’m Maggie Rose,” my girl said.

  “Huh,” the boy replied. “Is Rose your last name, or is that your middle name?”

  “My middle name. I’m Maggie Rose Murphy,” Maggie Rose said.

  “Well, I’m Bobby Jacob Dell,” the boy replied.

  I could see this was going to be one of those times when people stood around talking for a long while. When that happens, all a good dog can do is either wait for them to play or go off on her own. Since I was off leash, I had wandered away, sniffing at the bases of trees and along the tires of our truck, when I saw something overhead. It was Casey the crow, my best friend!

  Casey likes to follow me around and land on my back. Lately, he had started chasing us when we did Car Ride in the truck.

  He turned lazy circles overhead before fluttering down on a tre
e branch just above the cage where Scamper and Dash were busily wrestling with each other.

  And that’s when I smelled it: a very familiar scent was coming to me on the breeze.

  Frankly, it smelled a lot like Scamper and Dash, so I knew instantly that it was pig. In that moment, I recalled the big animal watching us as the baby animal lay on the ground. There had been a milk smell on the large creature, and I now understood that it was the mother of the little animal in the grass.

  That’s why the two animals’ scents had been mingled. The mother had been lying with the little animal. Mothers do that sort of thing. My mother used to, in the time when I lived with her and not with Maggie Rose.

  This made me remember something else. When I first met Scamper and Dash, they had been coated with a thick blanket of odor. It had smelled like grown-up pig and also a little bit like milk.

  Obviously, what I had smelled on Scamper and Dash was a mother smell. Scamper and Dash had a mother! And the familiar odor coming to me now was that very same pig.

  I do not know if the two little pigs smelled their mother, but I sure did. I went to the cage, and we touched noses. Scamper and Dash were, as usual, full of energy and wanting to race around even inside the small cage. If I were in there, we would all be wrestling.

  I knew if I wanted to be a really good friend to them, I would lead them toward that mother scent.

  When animals are very young, they need to be with their mothers. I used to be with mine. Even though I had to share her with too many brothers, I loved being near her.

  I didn’t need my mother anymore, because I had Maggie Rose now. But the little pigs were different. They were younger than I was. And they didn’t have their own people yet, the way I had my girl.

  If the little pigs were going to reach their mother, they needed to come out of the cage.

  I pawed at the cage door, frustrated that it was locked. I looked over at my girl to see if she was willing to come help me. However, she was busy talking to the boy her age while Dad was busy talking to the man his age. I would have to help my friends on my own.