Dandelion was a gentle, happy, friendly girl. She lived here, with her siblings, almost her entire 7 years of life. She was living her normal life until she suddenly didn’t come for breakfast. She was significantly lame in her left front leg without any signs of an injury or a scuffle. We tried stall rest and pain meds. X-rays showed nothing noteworthy to explain why she suddenly wouldn’t use her leg. We transported her to Purdue for further diagnostics and they found a smattering of things that were problematic, but nothing to explain her extreme level of sudden onset lameness. She had a moderate amount of arthritis in her elbow, but nothing broken or dislocated. No infection. She had the start of ulcers in her stomach from the stress of the last two weeks. Complications like that are common when pigs refuse to eat while they’re on pain medicine, and it creates a tight window for us to figure out the problem. She also had some suspicious spots in her stomach that looked like cancer. It doesn’t explain the lameness, but it does highlight why we OBSESS about preventing squamous cell carcinoma. The first place it metastasizes to is usually the stomach.
With all of these findings and her absolute refusal to use her leg, we made the decision with our vets to let her go peacefully. We were out of time and simply out of diagnostics. We tried every pain medicine. Every scan. Every option available to us. Nothing worked. Losing her was a huge disappointment for our team, and it’s proof that no matter how many tricks we pull out of the hat, we can’t always fix what is wrong.
Dandelion was part of a beautiful family of Meishan pigs who have lived here since they were babies. She is survived by her sisters, Violet, Clover, and Periwinkle, and her brother, Chicory. She had oodles of pig friends on Solsbury Hill, which was her chosen neighborhood. Blossom. Winnie. Ripley. Chester. Lucky Mac. Rodney. Tucker. Pheebee. She was a champion for sunscreen application, and we had her cancer lesions under pretty good control with cryotherapy. We thought we’d have a lot more time with her. See you on the other side, Dandy.
