I don't have any photo's and I'm too much a techno-dolt to know how to feed them in, anyway. He was pink, with white bristles, and he looked like a pig. He had a straight little tail with a white tuft on the end, which he wagged when he was happy. When the blackberries were ripe his maw was stained purple. He ate the centres out of dandelion plants, he had several different places he used only for toilet purposes, and he slept in the hallway, on a pallet of blankets, just outside my bedroom door.
I think the absolutely funniest part of the whole Ruarhaigh Boar experience came when my blonde daughter arrived on the farm with some of her friends. They came in, we were doing the hugging and the introductions and then here came Ruarhaigh, tail wagging happily. One of the friends nearly shat himself and my daughter exclaimed OHMIGAWD, Mo, I'm so sorry! I didn't even think........and Mohammed smiled bravely and said he had never known anybody before who kept a giraffe in the house. The entire time he was there Mo called Ruarhaigh a giraffe.
I suspect there are other animals who cry, we just don't get to really know them. I know when I took Viva to the stud she had to stay almost a month and while she was gone old Molly got so lonely and depressed I was getting worried about her. And when Dice went blind he flatout refused to eat or drink. Wouldn't even let me hand feed him. I asked several people who knew horses and they all said that's how horses commit suicide and Dice didnt' want to live blind. So I had him put down because the other was just too godawful to contemplate.
We treat animals as food or as amusements or entertainment and we don't seem to dare get to actually know them, on their terms. Mostly, Ruarhaigh lived a pig life, he got fed a teeny bit morning and night and he could come in the house any time he wanted but in decent weather he was outside, his choice. I didn't want him to root up the entire yard so from the beginning as soon as he started to dig I'd bang the window and yell "no". It took a couple of weeks, and he learned not to root..but if he was pissed off at me he'd turn his back to the house, peek over his shoulder, then deliberately rip up a bit of the lawn. It was so obviously "fuck you, snarly bitch" that I'd nearly collapse in laughter each time.
The horses absolutely detested him. Those who knew horses said it was because pigs smell like and sound like bears.
Ruarhaigh didn't mind getting his face washed, and he liked having lotion applied to the dry skin on his shoulders but each time we tried to bath him we'd no more than get him in the round rinse tub and he'd poop. Immediately. More "up your kilt, milt" messages.
I miss him. He was an absolutely exceptional and loyal friend.
