Husky News

Santos, a 100-pound Samoyed, might have considered having pork for lunch if the two menacing marauders that entered his backyard Wednesday morning hadn't bullied him into a corner before eating the dog food in his bowl.

GILLBURG – Santos, a 100-pound Samoyed, might have considered having pork for lunch if the two menacing marauders that entered his backyard Wednesday morning hadn't bullied him into a corner before eating the dog food in his bowl.

It didn't take Santos long to figure out he might have been the hunted, instead of the hunter.

"They looked like wild boars and had tusks coming out of their mouths," said Tonya Lightell, the dog's owner. She lives on Tristen Lane, a dirt road in Little Pond Estates.

Actually, they were probably feral hogs, according to Joe Folta, a technical guidance biologist with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission.

Folta said they would be fair game for hunters anytime of year in Vance County, which is part of District 3.

"Their tusks are their main defense," he added. "If they perceive a threat, they can defend themselves very well."

Lightell first knew something was wrong when Santos started howling outside her home, shortly after 8 a.m.

Both "wild boars" were black in color, and didn't appear to be trying to hurt her Samoyed, according to Lightell.

Santos was probably looking at things from a different perspective.

"I walked out the back door. They had Santos cornered against our trailer and the porch. They were grunting and trying to nudge at him."

Her husband, Michael, was at work.

Lightell managed to "shoo away" the intruders, who only retreated about 25 feet. One of them was about the size of Santos, while the other appeared to weigh about 50 pounds.

She took several photos of the barbecue with attitude. Lightell also put both Santos and Diesel, a Boxer puppy, inside the doublewide mobile home to protect them.

Lightell's two-year-old son, Caleb, was already safe inside. Her other two children were at school.

The hogs went around to the front porch of Lightell's trailer and cleaned out Diesel's food bowl.

Although the pair might actually have been gentle, Lightell said, she wasn't going to take any chances because of their appearance. "I didn't trust them. I didn't get near them."

Lightell called 911 and told a telecommunicator about her plight. "He thought it was funny. We were both laughing. I had never heard of anything like this before. He suggested I call Animal Control."

So she did.

It was somewhere around 10 a.m. when Lightell ventured out into the yard and discovered that the hogs had decided to go elsewhere.

Donald Bowes, an animal control officer, showed up at the residence shortly after noon.

Lightell recalled Bowes saying he would have been there sooner, but he had to round up a cow.

"I rode through the neighborhood and couldn't find any sign of them (the hogs)," he said later, during an interview.

"The lady told me her dog had run them off."

Somehow, judging by the look on Santos' face in one of the photos his mistress had taken, we kind of doubt that.

Source: The Daily Dispatch