Fern - Pets of the Pandemic
Painting by Heather Harrington | Titled: Fern | Acrylic on Stretched Canvas 10” x 10” x .875”
Meet Fern, an adorable little Juliana pig, owned by Amber Hassler and her family from Buckley, Michigan. When they submitted her for Pets of the Pandemic and I saw the pictures of Fern and heard their story I knew I had to paint her! Below is my conversation with Amber on what it’s like to have a pig for a pet!
Why did your family decide to get a pig for a pet during the pandemic rather than a traditional dog or cat?
I am highly allergic to all pets with fur, but pigs have hair! So this summer, when we decided to pull the kids from public school and home school, we also added Fern to the family! She offers learning experiences, fabulous snuggly naps, and endless entertainment. We don’t go out at all during Covid, because of my underlying health conditions. Adding a pig to the family makes the days less mundane. Keeps us on our toes!
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How is raising a pig different than other animals?
Pigs are incredibly intelligent, so she is very similar to a dog in some ways, but easier to train. By the time she was 10 weeks old she was litter trained (she goes outside, but is an indoor pig), and had three tricks she could do.
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What special tricks can she do?
Pig tricks are different than a dog, she can “come” and “stay,” but her best trick is spin, and she can’t “sit” yet.
It is a lot like having a 2 year old child. She thrives on her schedule, and will loudly remind us when it is time to eat!
She rings a bell when she wants to go outside, and recently has been working on learning to bow. She doesn’t play with toys, but is entertained for hours with a ball of paper or a magazine.
And she loves giving kisses, but doesn’t lick like a dog, she presses her lips to your face like a human does.
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You mentioned that your kids have been homeschooling during the pandemic. How old are your kids? And, do you feel that having Fern as a pet has helped them with homeschooling during this time?
We have four kids, the twins (Pierce and Lillian) are in 8th grade, Ted is in 6th, and Charlotte is in 4th. Homeschooling in a pandemic is such a change in our daily lives! Being all together, all the time, can get taxing.
Fern has offered a relief from the mundane, the love and acceptance she offers has made each of our kids happier. Before we got her they would bicker constantly, and spoke only in whines, afterward they all calmed down and enjoyed each other’s company more.
The girls have actually been working together to train her! It has been an amazing transformation.
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You mentioned that having Fern offers “fun learning experiences.” Is there one that comes to mind that you’d like to share?
A pigs needs are different than any pet we’ve ever had before. She can jump high, run fast, and dig with incredible efficiency. Each kid has taken this challenge differently. The boys worked with my husband to build her an outdoor enclosure, with a ramp that was easier for her to maneuver than steps. Her dietary needs have been an ongoing research project for Lily. All the stuff she’s read say pigs are not picky eaters, yet Fern will delicately remove any celery, lettuce, or mushrooms we put in her meal. Just like a toddler!
Charlotte is the only one that can work on leash training with her, because Fern is SO slow. Charlotte meanders through life, so they are a great pairing for walks.
One of the funniest things we’ve learned is that we can’t have any bare skin, no shorts, and we have to wear shoes all the time. For weeks we were baffled because she’d mouth our feet and legs and arms constantly. Sometimes she’d even gently use her teeth, or swipe her head (her head is very strong, it’s like getting hit by a cabbage patch doll head 😆) at us!
We couldn’t figure out why Fern would do this. We looked in books and asked other pig owners, still it remained a puzzle. Until one day we realized that the only bare skin Fern had ever seen was her mother’s belly! So she would mouth us to search for food! She hasn’t done it once since we enforced wearing socks all the time!
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How did Fern get her name?
Fern was going to be named Eliza Hamilton, because we’d been watching Hamilton a lot, and singing the songs constantly, when we got her. Then we brought her home, and it was just not a good fit, Eliza sounded like a fancy name. Fern is very down to earth.
So, we went back to the original list of names we’d come up with. Fern was on the list because we love Charlotte’s Web. Fern is the girl in the book, and the name seemed just right! In the book, Fern is a girl and Charlotte is a spider. In our house, Charlotte is a girl and Fern is a pig.
A special thank you to Amber and her family for sharing Fern’s story with us! If you’d like to learn more about Fern and follow along on her journey she has her own Facebook page, click here to check it out.
Painting above by Heather Harrington
Titled: Fern | Acrylic on Stretched Canvas
This painting is for sale and can be purchased by clicking the title.
