THIS LITTLE PIGGY IS OINKSTA-FAMOUS
CELEBRITY, LIFESAVER, BIOGRAPHY, WILMA MIGHT FLY NEXT
WILMA the pet store pig is back in the spotlight, this time as a super hero ham.
Not only has she continued her stint as the Pet Discount Outlet’s mascot, but a newly released children’s book by her human family on her life reveals how she helped save a swan’s life.
The illustrator of Wilma: An autobiography of a 1-yearold, Mollie O’Sullivan, 23, said they had been calling Wilma in for dinner, but the normally hungry pig was nowhere to be seen.
“She wasn’t coming and we thought she was definitely down at the park,” she said.
“When we got there, there was a swan halfway in the water all tangled up in fishing line and Wilma was in the water looking at it.”
She said they managed to grab the swan and rid it of its entanglements, all thanks to Wilma alerting them.
It’s just one of the stories in the pet pig’s “autobiography’’ released on Saturday, helpfully written by co-owner Matthew O’Sullivan, documenting her extraordinary tale from slaughterhouse to celebrity pig.
Ms O’Sullivan said an earlier story by the Bulletin helped propel Wilma to stardom and a subsequent interview with Hot Tomato’s Emily Jade O’Keeffe planted the idea for a children’s book.
Ms O’Sullivan said Wilma was rescued from becoming dinner when she was just a piglet and she grew up in the suburbs before becoming the face of the pet store, Pet Discount Outlet, at Ashmore.
“She kind of terrorised the neighbourhood ... and did her own re-landscaping, moving furniture around and ‘helping’ around the house,” she said of Wilma’s amusing adventures recounted in the book.
“When she has some energy she does funny things.”
Ms O’Sullivan said her father Matthew, a former script writer, wrote the book while she and sister Charlotte, 17, illustrated it.
The book costs $10 and can be bought via Booktopia.