A Portland man found himself homeless at 44 years of age, along with his dog and a 250-lbs. pet pig.
But the fire department’s special homeless assistance team got the man and arranged for a trip home to his family in Chicago, and for the Roscoe the pig, a spot in the state’s largest farm animal rescue sanctuary.
A burst appendix, an inability to work, a mortal heart attack: Tony James suddenly found himself a jobless widower living out of his car. His only shelter was his car, which he shared with his dog Elvis a fully grown Göttingen breed pig that his deceased wife had adopted 3 years before.
Amid the tragedy, Portland Fire & Rescue’s Community Health Assess and Treat (CHAT) team identified James as someone on the brink, and stepped in to help, offering him transport to his family’s home in Chicago, and to find a sanctuary for Roscoe.
Within a day, CHAT had contacted the Lighthouse Farm Sanctuary in Scio, Oregon, the largest of its kind in the state, and home to some 300 farm animals.
Driving Roscoe to his new home, executive director of Lighthouse Farm Sanctuary‘s executive director Gwen Jakubisin got to watch the man bid farewell to a pig he had cared for even without a roof over his head.
“It was actually quite emotional because the bond between Tony and Roscoe was very apparent,” Jakubisin told Samantha Swindler at Oregon Live. “They love each other very much. We were all crying.”
Roscoe entered into a quarantine period in advance of joining the sanctuary’s 132 pigs, but it was clear by his eyes, tusks, and trotters, that there was nothing wrong with him—James had cared for him excellently.
SHOWING COMPASSION:
“We have a big oak forest, and so in the fall he’ll have acorns to munch on,” said Jakubisin. “He’ll have wallows, which is something he had never really had before. Tony said that he found a mud puddle in a park once and went wild with it.”
The 250-lbs. Roscoe got cozy in his new home just in time to celebrate thanksgiving with an all-natural pumpkin pie fit for a pig set to live high on the hog until, said Jakubisin, James can get back on his feet, at which point she’d be happy to arrange a reunion.
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