Via the awesome i&o blog, we bring you Cinders, a pig with mysphobia - a fear of dirt. The porker's owners, Debbie and Andrew Keeble, pig farmers and sausage makers in North Yorkshire England, had never seen anything like it. The tiny piglet would cower and shake in the grass at the edge of the mud pit while his siblings gallivanted about in the filth like proper British pigs. The family's five year old daughter suggested putting her Paddington Bear boots on the pig to overcome its fear and it seems to have worked.
Zooillogix was skeptical that one could actually diagnose a piglet with mysophobia, but the video we found says it is so with a British accent, thereby proving it is true. (Update: they took the BBC video down so we have replaced it with a less authoritative CNN one)
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That may be a British accent, but it's not David Attenborough, so it isn't definitive.
My favorite part is that they are Paddington Bear boots...makes the needle just go right off the Cuteometer.
Umm, if that piggy is being raised on a sausage farm, I think he has a lot more to worry about in the future than some dirt on his little piggy toes.
Apparently the pig's owners have committed to not sausagizing this guy.
He is so adorable.
"Apparently the pig's owners have committed to not sausagizing this guy."
And the behavior's function was found! Now we wait and see if its offspring will learn the same behavior and survive too! :)
Ah-h-h! It makes me really proud to be British - I love us dearly :-D
Quit porking fun at the suffering of the pork and down-trodden....
*Quietly wishes for a pet with a strange and cutely-resolved neurosis*
Please link to a new video, that one has been made private and cannot be viewed any more.
aw! i don't know how you came across this, but pretty strange!