Rescuers Use Cheese Puffs To Lure 275-Pound Pig Home After Mississippi Tornado

"There's no way I could have gotten Oink to a car, picked her up, or made her walk a certain direction. The ASPCA knew what they were doing.”

With help from her favorite snack, a pig that got loose in the aftermath of the severe weather that barreled through Mississippi last month, is finally back home.

Sandra Koenig is one of hundreds of residents whose properties were destroyed by the tornado that struck the town of Amory on March 24th. The deadly winds toppled the fence around the family’s backyard, where their 275-pound pet pig, Oink, likes to spend her days.

Recently, after three weeks without a fence, Oink decided that it was time for an adventure. 
“Without a fence, Oink kind of wandered off,” Koenig recalled to USA Today. “She doesn't wander far, she’s not fast, so she wandered a street over.”

A couple of hours later, an animal control officer found her waddling around a nearby residential area.

“He was able to wrangle her, because she's a very large girl, get her securely in his van and transport her to the Humane Society to keep her safe and sound until her people could be identified,” ASPCA disaster response director, Susan Anderson, told the newspaper.

At that point, the ASPCA has been on the ground in Amory for nearly a month assisting with the evacuation of animals, emergency sheltering, search-and-rescue efforts, distributing pet food and supplies, and helping clean up Amory Humane Society’s shelter, which sustained immense damage.

As luck would have it, ASPCA members had visited Oink the day before she wandered off, so they immediately recognized the potbellied pig in the Humane Society’s possession. But to reunite her with her owners without the animal control officer's assistance, they would need to get creative.

“The ASPCA knew who she belonged to, and they knew exactly how to guide her back and get her (home),” Koenig told USA Today.

To get the nearly 300-pound pig into a van, they would need her favorite treat: cheese puffs.

According to Koenig, Oink hadn’t enjoyed the snack in months because of her vet-recommended diet plan. Just one taste of that cheese powder had her eating out of rescuers’ hands… literally.

“It sure worked,” Koenig told the publication. “There's no way I could have gotten Oink to a car, picked her up, or made her walk a certain direction. The ASPCA knew what they were doing.”

Oink is one of more than 650 animals the ASPCA has helped so far in Amory.

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