Consider the pig. The animal’s intelligence and cleanliness are often — wrongfully — maligned. And most people think it makes a better pork roast than pet.
Judy Woods considers the pig. She considers its well-being and health, and she worries that fate is seldom kind to the barnyard mainstay.
She also considers pigs friends.
Woods runs the 34-acre Pigs Peace Sanctuary, the only such sanctuary in Washington. There’s one other pig sanctuary in West Virginia and maybe less than a half-dozen in the nation, by her estimation.
Woods calls the 90 or so pigs at the sanctuary by name. They walk up to her, and she scratches their ears.
“Here, Winston,” she called. “Here, Winston.”
It sounded like she was calling a dog. But instead, a small potbellied pig raised its head from the grass about 30 feet away and came running toward Woods, snuggling up to her, waiting to be scratched.
“They’re so smart,” she said.
How smart? On a scale of animal intelligence, Woods noted, pigs rank third, behind dolphins and primates. Dogs are 13th.
Such enlightenment is a key part of the sanctuary theme. There’s an education center, where visitors are taught about pigs, vegetarianism and facets of animal existence.
Doing what she can
But one point Woods stressed: Please don’t call to donate a pig. She needs money, and the sanctuary is a certified non-profit, tax-exempt organization, so donations are tax-deductible. But if she accepted all the pigs that she has been offered, there would be thousands, far more than the sanctuary could support.
Woods said she’s able to accept that. She’s doing what she can.
“So many people can’t find what to do with their lives,” she said. “I figured that out a long time ago. This is my life’s work.”
Pigs and other farm animals can be tough to place at animal shelters. The Progressive Animal Welfare Society (PAWS), for example, doesn’t accept them because their needs differ so much from companion animals such as dogs and cats, said Kay Joubert, PAWS’ director.
Shelters commonly have concrete floors that aren’t suitable for hooves and often aren’t big enough for animals that routinely weigh 600 pounds or more.
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“There are a lot of niches out there,” said Joubert, who added that she has taken pigs to the Pigs Peace Sanctuary herself. “Pigs Peace is definitely filling an important one.”
Through a somewhat crooked path, the sanctuary started with a letter to the editor that appeared in The Seattle Times in about 1970.
Woods, 49, grew up in the Northgate area of Seattle. When she was about 15, during a period when news about seal-pup slaughters in Canada was first emerging, the letter discussed what hypocrites humans were to think that animals were going to slaughter willingly. Woods became a vegetarian.
She married and had three children, divorced, became a registered nurse and moved to the Arlington area seeking a rural life.
Then in the late 1980s, potbellied pigs became popular pets. Like many fads, the lure soon faded, and many of the pigs were abandoned or worse.
“Shelters wouldn’t take them,” Woods said. “There was a lot of abuse, going to slaughter. That’s when I stepped in.”
Woods had rescued one pig, then made a call to PAWS in 1994 and found they had pigs that had been put to death because they weren’t set up to care for them.
She began saving pigs, formed the Pigs Peace Sanctuary and first ran it in the Arlington area.
Then, Seattle animal-rights activist and attorney Mitzi Leibst bequeathed a sizable amount to Pigs Peace Sanctuary in 2001.
“I got a phone call,” said Woods, from the executor of Leibst’s estate.
The caller informed her that Leibst had left half of her assets to the Pigs Peace Sanctuary, even though she had never even been to the sanctuary.
The run of the place
Woods used the money to buy the Stanwood-area farm about a year ago. Now there’s a white farmhouse on the former dairy farm where Woods lives. The former milk barn is filled with hay and sleeping pigs. The pigs and assorted other animals, including dogs, llamas, horses and even a turkey named Tom, have the run of the property.
It sounds idyllic, but it’s often not so tranquil. The entire operation runs on donations, and just feed for the pigs costs thousands of dollars a month.
Besides that, it’s virtually a one-woman operation, with Woods doing everything. Until recently, Woods had worked 12-hour shifts as a nurse several nights a week and took care of the animals during the day, an exhausting schedule. So she has given up the nursing for now.
There are volunteers who help out, but sometimes three show up and sometimes 83 might stop in.