This is a picture of Theodore, our wild boar, and a Doberman that came to class for the first time. You can tell by the look in her eyes the terror she felt being kissed by a wild boar. Theodore was a main attraction at our farm school because he was bottle fed and lived in our house until he was too big, playing, sleeping and eating with the dogs and cats. As he grew bigger he moved into the larger animal pen where he lived with sheep, ducks and the like. He always liked to sleep on our patio with the other animals. By the time he was full-grown, in fact ‘enormous’, he moved in with the horses and donkeys where he had a large area to roam and against all rules of nature he was loved by all of the animals. He used to come on walks with us and participate in riding lessons. All the school children could pet him even though he got to be about 200 kilos and had huge tusks. Due to his friendly nature and because he was basically free to go where he wanted, he frightened many walkers and workmen so he finally had to be put in with the other wild boar. He always remained friendly and had a companion called Rachel who in turn had many babies. He was a wonderful father and adjusted fine to a less affectionate environment, we still always let him out loose and to play with the other animals or come walking with us in the country.
My father always said that my animals had identity crises from being raised in the house on a bottle and associating with so many types of animals. Most of them were given to me by farmers who could not raise them or were just thrown in my driveway. As a result they were all a valuable part of our Animal Assisted Therapy program called ANIMO. I have many more wonderful stories and for those of you interested the technical part is at the bottom of the page.
