A lot has happened at Zoo and Aquarium Visitor over the past couple of weeks. The most significant piece of news is our approval by Google as a news site. 

 

On July 3, Zoo and Aquarium Visitor’s web site was qualified by Google as an independent news site. All of the news, stories and photos posted on this site will be indexed and classified as news items.

 

This is a different rating and classification than regular sites receive.

 

Google requires a separate process of indexing and rating for news entities. Google’s purpose for doing this is to sort the news items from press releases submitted and posted on web sites by companies promoting their products, trade associations promoting their members and themselves, and facilities promoting themselves, etc.

 

We had a number of zoo and aquarium visitors who took the time to let us know they found the alphabetical listing of facilities on our web site to be inconvenient. We discovered they wanted to know which facilities were located closest to them.

 

Now when you click on zoos, aquariums, sanctuaries, etc. you will find them listed by location. The ability to view alphabetically still exists by clicking on the link in the top right hand corner of the landing page.

 

My daughter, Kelly, and I went to visit a woman who houses small farm animals as a no-kill rescue shelter. Among other things she had a bunch of pot bellied pigs and goats including piglets and kids.

 

The long term effect of nearly dying from starvation was very apparent with a friendly boar that was living there. His patchy hair loss and deformities from being malnourished unfortunately appear to be permanent.

 

My hat is off to everyone who works in this arena. Most people do so without pay and in many cases pay for the housing, food, and vet care of these animals out of their own pockets.

 

The thing that was most amazing about Katie’s place was that during both visits that day there were no feces in any of the areas and not a fly to be seen. Best guess there were about 12 pigs, 15 goats and 12 large dogs.

 

This visit also coincided with my sister Jennie’s 50^th birthday party. My sister has been a Cleveland Police Officer for 25 years and a Registered Nurse for 6 or 7.

 

When she first joined the police force, the term pig was used in a derogatory manner to describe police officers. As a play on that, my sister started receiving ceramic pigs as gag gifts on her birthday and at Christmas. Over the years she has embraced this collection of gifts and made her own contributions.

 

It was only appropriate that on her 50^th birthday she should receive a live pig from Kelly and me. We borrowed two piglets for the afternoon. Kelly wanted to make my vehicle look like Noah’s Ark and also take a couple of goats and puppies. We left with just the two piglets.

 

My sister, Sue, was in on the piglet scheme for the party and had Jennie sit in a chair with her back facing the street. She was then blindfolded with a scarf, told to touch her present and identify it. As soon as she realized it was something alive, the blindfold was immediately pulled off.

 

Jennie was very disappointed to discover the piglet we handed her was not to keep. Cleveland has a residency rule and members of the safety forces are required to live within city limits. Cleveland also has zoning laws prohibiting residents from keeping pigs. 

 

The piglets loved the attention and did what young kids do when you ignore them. They squealed for more attention. After being held for a couple of hours and receiving lots of attention, the piglets were very content. We reluctantly returned them to Katie.

 

Top photo: Jennie at moment of recognition. Piglet was wrapped in a towel.

 

Bottom photo: Kelly and myself next to the pool with both piglets.