Walker and Willow came to OMI when their sanctuary home closed down in Washington State. They were a bonded pair who needed safe placement. Our initial task was to deliver them to their new home, but the strangest thing happened. When we arrived to drop them off, we asked for a tour of the property. During the tour, we discovered a badly injured potbelly in need of emergency medical care. He’d been attacked by dogs a week earlier, and he was not receiving adequate amounts of medical care. His name was Melvin. We brought Walker and Willow back home to live with us at OMI, and we accepted Melvin into our care, as well. Walker and Willow are personally responsible for Melvin’s rescue from a home where he would have died of his injuries.
Walker lived in the MedBarn Neighborhood for many happy years with Willow. He loved meal times, grazing in the pasture, and his med sammies!
For aging pigs, mobility almost always becomes the greatest challenge. We can often see it coming long before it arrives, and we work tirelessly to help them hold onto every bit of comfort, joy, and dignity their bodies will allow. That precious window of good quality of life can close with heartbreaking speed, and eventually we have to accept what they’re telling us—that it’s time.
Walker was our friend. He was deeply loved and respected by everyone on our team. We spent extraordinary amounts of time helping him live his best life as a Sanctuary Babe, and his absence is felt in the quiet spaces of our daily routine where we were tending to his every need.