The attack on Hiney the pig was, by all accounts, completely unprovoked.
Hiney wasn’t looking for trouble that day. The Vietnamese pot-bellied pig was just doing what he does best – looking for something to eat – outside his Huntington Boulevard home in Northeast Roanoke, where Annette LaFleche and Mark Landau also live.
“It was such a beautiful day, I let him graze in the back yard, ” LaFleche said. After putting Hiney on a 35-foot leash, LaFleche went inside to do chores.
A few minutes later, she heard Hiney squealing like … well, like a pig.
Rushing outdoors, LaFleche was horrified to find that a neighbor’s dog – a large, red chow named Sash – was assaulting Hiney with the kind of random violence that is rare to most Roanoke neighborhoods.
Hiney escaped, but not unscathed. “His little heinie was all bitten up, ” LaFleche said.
It was the kind of crime that cried out for justice, and that is why LaFleche and Sash’s owner, Chasity McGhee, were in Roanoke General District Court this week.
McGhee was charged with having a dangerous dog. Hanging in the balance was a new interpretation of Roanoke’s dog ordinance. In the past, most people charged under the law have owned dogs that attacked people. Hiney’s case could have set a new pig precedent.
But Judge Julian Raney decided it would be best to take the case under advisement – in effect putting Sash on probation for 12 months – after McGhee promised to electrify a fence that had, in the past, failed to restrain him.
“I can’t help it, my dog’s crazy, ” said McGhee, who nonetheless decided against an insanity plea for Sash. After all, what red-blooded canine would turn down a shot at a slow-moving, well-padded pig?
But LaFleche was determined to show the judge just how serious the case really was. She brought color photographs to court that illustrated, in graphic and close-up detail, the bite marks on Hiney’s ham.
And she made sure Raney saw other photographs of Hiney taken during better times, such as the feature shots that ran in The Roanoker and The Roanoke Times & World-News.
“I wanted the judge to see that Hiney isn’t just a rogue pig, ” LaFleche said. “He’s something special. … He is a beloved member of the household.”
Whether or not that swayed the judge is uncertain, but Raney did convict McGhee on a second charge of allowing her dog to run loose and ordered her to pay court costs.
McGhee and LaFleche were in court Tuesday for what courthouse regulars call the “dog docket” – a monthly slate of hearings reserved for animals and their owners who run afoul of the law.
Sometimes, emotions in dog court can run higher than on other days when more weighty issues are decided.
“Animal cases seem to get people very emotional, ” Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney Gerald Teaster said. “We get a lot of intensity in the courtroom when we try these things.”
Adding to LaFleche’s anxiety was the fact that Sash remained at large after the Feb. 18 incident, a possible threat to Dinner and Jessabelle, two other pot-bellied pigs that live nearby.
But after LaFleche called 911 and animal-control officers were sent to the scene, the suspect was spotted in the area and ultimately apprehended.
“The dog came back to the scene of the crime, ” LaFleche said. “I guess he really wanted some pork chops that day.”
Since the attack, 5-year-old Hiney seems to have made a full recovery – both physically and emotionally. “I had a hard time getting him to go outside, even to potty, for a week after it happened, ” LaFleche said. “But now he seems to be his old self.”
LaFleche, who has a mailbox shaped like a pig and drives a car with a “LUV PIGS” vanity license plate, says she has learned a valuable lesson from Hiney’s encounter.
“Needless to say, all of Hiney’s visits to the back yard are now closely supervised, ” she said.
That, of course, is based on hindsight.