THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, November 15, 1994 TAG: 9411150347
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN E. QUINONES MILLER, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 115 lines
It started with a short, kind of funny story about an obese pig. It ballooned into a discussion about the role of government in people's everyday lives.
``I want to know one thing,'' said a caller to the Perry Stone show on WNIS-AM on Friday. ``If they can take a pig away because it's obese, can they lock me up because I'm too fat?''
Another caller asked, ``If they charged this pig's owner with cruelty to animals because the pig was fat, are they going to start charging parents of chubby kids with child abuse?''
People all over Hampton Roads - all over the country, for that matter - are talking about Pinky Starlight, the Vietnamese potbellied pig that was taken away from her owner because she was overweight.
Her picture has been in newspapers all over the country. She's been mentioned by radio commentator Charles Osgood and television talk-show host Jay Leno. Rush Limbaugh - host of the highest-rated syndicated radio show in the country - told his listeners about the pig.
Pinky is 18 months old, stands about 18 inches tall and weighed about 200 pounds - more than twice what experts say she should weigh - when she was brought in by animal control officers last Tuesday. Her owner, Virginia Hudgins of the 8100 block of Simons Drive, was charged with cruelty.
It's cruel to ignore a veterinarian's orders that a pig's weight is dangerous to its health, local officials explained.
Once they stopped chuckling about Pinky Starlight, people had second thoughts about the case: What about feeding humans until they are overweight?
Hudgins and her lawyer, Michael T. Pangalos, were on the Stone show Monday morning on WROX-FM. Once again, the telephone lines filled up with people who wanted to talk about Pinky.
``I admit that when you first hear about the whole thing it certainly does sound funny,'' Pangalos said, ``but, as stupid as it sounds, there are some real underlying issues here that must be addressed.''
Pangalos, of the Virginia Beach law firm Kelberg, Childress & Flax, said he is representing Hudgins free of charge. He says he wants to get his client exonerated and reunited with her pet.
``This whole incident shows that the government has too pervasive a grip on people's lives,'' Pangalos said. ``The authorities are interfering in what should be the private matters of a private citizen.''
Hudgins, who turns 34 today, said her pig was like a member of her family. She said she wanted a pig ever since she read the book ``Charlotte's Web'' as a little girl. So she decided to look at a litter of newborn Vietnamese potbellied piglets last summer.
``When I saw this little pink thing just wagging at its tail, I was just won over,'' Hudgins said. ``To me she just twinkled like a star - that's why I named her Pinky Starlight.''
Pinky quickly became like a member of the family, Hudgins said, and would sometimes jump up on a chair and join the family at the dinner table.
At first Hudgins thought such antics were cute, but soon little Pinky became big Pinky.
The pig just wouldn't stop eating. It took three people to get Pinky into the car last June after a picnic. She didn't want to leave.
Pinky would eat anything and everything - from exotic pig food to fast-food hamburgers and french fries.
``She even ate bacon, pork chops and ham. I used to joke that she was cannibalistic,'' Hudgins said.
When the veterinarian said Pinky had to lose weight, Hudgins said she took it seriously, but obviously not seriously enough.
``One of the problems was that I was not the only one feeding the pig,'' she said.
Hudgins said she didn't even get terribly alarmed when Pinky's weight made it difficult for her to walk and rolls of fat from her forehead sank down into her eyelids, blocking her sight.
``She was kind of lazy anyway and didn't like to do much but eat and then lay around,'' Hudgins said, ``and it's my understanding that pigs have bad eyesight anyway, and rely on their sense of smell to get around.''
According to Dale Riffle - co-owner of Potbellied pigs Interest Group and Shelter, known as PIGS, a sanctuary - obesity is the No. 1 health problem among potbellied pigs.
``In my opinion, yes, it is cruel to let a pig become obese. It affects their hearts and lungs, and causes them to run like triple overtime,'' said Riffle, who has 120 potbellied pigs on his Charles Town, W.Va., farm.
``Obese pigs should definitely be put on a diet and exercised for their own good,'' he said in a telephone interview.
Pinky was taken to a Chesapeake farm owned by Dr. M.W. Myers, a veterinarian, until a judge decides whether she should be returned to Hudgins. Myers reports Pinky is doing well and has already lost some weight, although he has no scale at the farm to monitor her progress.
``Her belly no longer scrapes the ground when she walks, and the discharge from her eyes has decreased considerably,'' Myers said.
Meanwhile Hudgins and Pangalos are readying for their Nov. 29 hearing at Norfolk General District Court.
``If the authorities are allowed to do this now, the argument can be extended so that neighbors could start calling the police and ratting on owners of chubby dogs and cats,'' Pangalos said.
``I'm not saying that it isn't wrong to overfeed your pig,'' he said, ``but there should be a distinction between what's advisable and what's criminal.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color file photo
Pinky Starlight
Color photo
Owner Virginia Hudgins
KEYWORDS: PINKIE STARLIGHT POTBELLIED PIG by CNB