Meet Cesak. He is a wonderful pig and over the past few months has become one of my favorites.
He lives with 12 other pigs in the Pig Barn and I find him to be quite exceptional. He has this wonderful curly hair which makes him easy to spot and really beautiful eyes. His eyes are particularly striking and I would challenge anyone to gaze into them and try to tell me that there is nothing going on behind them.
So, what does any of this have to do with the title of this post? Well, I am getting to that. One of my frequent jobs at Farm Sanctuary is to clean the Pig Barn. This is actually part of the daily ritual and in order to do it, there can't be any pigs inside. In my experience, there are three things that pigs love more than anything in the world: 1) Food, 2) Sleep, and 3) A nice warm nest in which to do #2 (Sleep, that is, they prefer to do their "dirty business" outside). When you consider that none of the above preferences involve a morning wake-up call and a march down to the pond, you can begin to imagine what fun it can be to be the deliverer of said wake-up call. The procedure for escorting the pigs down to the pond generally involves some loud talking and the use of "pig boards" (Red plastic boards that are used to guide the pigs and as a barrier between them and you). The walk from the barn to the pond gate is about thirty yards, give or take.
In every group, there has to be a challenge and in the past couple months, Cesak has stepped up to fill the role. He does not want to get up, or leave the barn, or walk to the pond and he loudly protests for the entire duration of the mandatory process. Add to that the fact that Cesak is probably in the five-hundred pound range (I am guessing on this, but being conservative) and you can easily start to see the visual of the "immovable object".
Part of my job is to be the "unstoppable force". As I previously mentioned, I think the world of Cesak but in our daily struggle it is imperative that I win every time. Pigs are very smart and if I let him stay in his bed one day or try to lure him down to the pond with a treat, he will expect this everyday and the wake-up call will be more difficult for me and each of my co-workers. While my victory is important, I also try to look at this from Cesak's perspective. In his mind, I expect that I am violating two of the most basic laws of pig behavior: 1) The loudest pigs generally gets his/her way and 2) If that fails, the biggest strongest pig always wins. Cesak is much louder, bigger, and stronger than me, and yet I fail to yield. This must be quite perplexing.
To an unseasoned observer, I am sure that this exercise would look quite amusing as our battle of wills plays out everyday. It may even seem scary to someone who is not accustomed to the sounds that pigs make when they are not getting their way (To say that they are vocal would be a huge understatement) and hears the squeals, growls, and bellows for the first time. What is especially notable is that Cesak never tries to hurt me. I am positive that Cesak knows that he could do so. He has the edge on me in many areas, but it never becomes that type of battle. I like to believe that he understands at some level what this is all about, but that it is a game that we play. We both want to win, but only the unstoppable force can.
Every day as I watch Cesak walk through the pond gate, I congratulate him everyday on his game play and let him know that I look forward to tomorrow's match. At this point, we are still friends and I give him a hug or a good back scratch. See you tomorrow Cesak, same time, same place!
