‘P’ was for ‘Prize-winning Pig.’ Also, ‘Please, pee.’
After nabbing Junior Market’s top award, ‘absolute athlete’ needed to pass drug test
He’d tapped the Berkshire pig’s sides, nudging it in circles around the arena, as an announcer called his 280-pound animal an “absolute athlete,” praising its spread and naming it champion of the Junior Market Barrow Show.
Supporters clicked smartphone photos in the stands inside the NRG Center at the Houston Rodeo and Livestock Show on Monday. Family and friends shook his hand.
Now, after guiding the pig into a curtain-lined pen, 17-year-old Cody Wolf had to get his massive swine to pee.
“What do we have to do to get this thing to urinate?” said his father, Billy, as family clustered around Cody, waiting in a curtain-lined pen.
Screening a pig’s urine for antibiotics is one of several steps after the barrow show to ensure against foul play. The animal’s hair was also plucked for a DNA analysis. (“Make sure you pull down low so he doesn’t get a bald spot,” Billy
Wolf advised.)
Cody’s younger brother walked a green plastic bucket full of water toward the pen. A clear bag was tied around the pig’s belly to catch any pee. Someone suggested bringing the pig to the scales, explaining that two dozen animals had urinated after making that trip.
Sometimes, Cody said, it happens right away. Sometimes it takes hours.
Cody had felt good about his pig’s chances in the livestock show coming into the morning’s event. He got up at 5:30 a.m. and came to the NRG Center by 6 a.m. to feed, water, wash and weigh the animal. The pig, about six-and-a-half months old, started the day at 5 pounds less than his final sum.
The pig, Cody said, always felt distinct from the dozens of others the family raised in Whitesboro in North Texas. He’s always been heavier, Cody said, more muscular, bigger legged. The highschool junior would know — he’d been showing pigs since third grade.
He and other family members had put long hours into getting the pig to this level after buying it online in the fall. But Cody knew its success would ultimately come down to his own ability to show it off in the ring.
“If this doesn’t get you excited,” an announcer said as Cody and other exhibitors circled, “check your pulse.”
When the announcer began describing the winning pig, Cody said, he knew he had succeeded. Back in the pen, after the event, family members passed around an H-shaped trophy.
And finally, 50 minutes later, the pig peed into the clear plastic bag and was hustled off once more — this time, to stand in front of Cody and more than 20 others, for a photo.