Abandonment
The recent upsurge in the popularity of pot-bellied pigs as fad pets has led to abandonment when owners discover that the pigs actually grow to larger sizes and require more care than they believed. Others are forced to give up pet pigs due to local ordinances.
According to Adam Goldfarb, the director of the Pets At Risk program for the Humane Society of the United States, "Potbellied pigs are really emblematic of what happens to an animal when it becomes a popular or fad pet. We saw this in the '90s when there was the initial potbellied pig craze. A lot of people went to buy them because they are so cute when they are little but then they get big."
Pot-bellied pig associations recommend adoption from local shelters instead of buying. Others like the Southern California Association for Miniature Pot Bellied Pigs (SCAMPP) and the California Potbellied Pig Association (CPPA) are actively involved in housing abandoned pet pigs. Despite this, shelters often have difficulty in finding new homes for abandoned pigs.
Read more about this topic: Pot-bellied Pig
Famous quotes containing the word abandonment:
“I am black: I am the incarnation of a complete fusion with the world, an intuitive understanding of the earth, an abandonment of my ego in the heart of the cosmos, and no white man, no matter how intelligent he may be, can ever understand Louis Armstrong and the music of the Congo.”
—Frantz Fanon (1925–1961)