i share my bed with a pig!
She may share her bed with a 12st hairy pig, but Jaime Paul, 23, from Cleveland, couldn’t be happier!
Snoring loudly, hairy legs digging in my side – it sounds like any ordinary wife’s bedtime…
Certainly, with my Claude hogging the bed, it’s hard to get any sleep. He sleeps on his side with his legs sticking out. And I get a shock sometimes when I wake up to find his hairy face next to mine!
But then Claude isn’t your average bedmate… He’s my 12st pig!
Pet crazy, I’ve got cats, guinea pigs, rabbits and hamsters. Yet Claude is one of a kind!
I first laid eyes on him in a pet shop, in January 2015. There was a small farm attached to the shop and it was there that I saw him.
Claude was tiny, with ginger, wiry hair and black speckles. No bigger than my palm. So cute!
He was one of an eightstrong litter of 5-week-old piglets for sale.
Watching them oink away, I squealed too. I needed him!
Ringing my mum, I tried persuading her.
‘No way,’ Mum Tracey, now 50, said firmly. ‘Please!’ I begged, desperately. ‘Ask your dad,’ she said. Leaving the shop, I rang my dad, David, now 53.
He was on a high as his football team had just won.
‘Yes, of course, you can get him, darling!’ he said happily.
On cloud nine, I rushed back to buy Claude.
The shop were delighted and said I could take him home in three weeks time. Mum was furious. ‘Where’s he going to sleep?’ she fumed.
So we bought him a dog bed with a metal cage for downstairs.
When he gets bigger, he’d live in the garden.
‘What shall I call him then?’ I mused.
All our pets have traditional human names.
Walter, Colin, Alan… ‘Well, if he’s going to stay, it can’t be anything fluffy!’ Mum insisted.
So Claude it was. When the big day finally arrived to go and collect him, I was beyond excited.
We’d bought special pig food from a farm shop for him, too. Claude was adorable. Trotting around the house, his pink snout nuzzled the sofa and the carpet.
He settled right in.
Our cat, Walter, then 2, took a shine to him, too.
On the first night, we tried to get Claude comfortable in his cage. But he wouldn’t relax.
Heading up to bed, I could hear him oinking and crying. Bless!
He’d been with his mum and siblings his whole life and he’d never been alone.
I tried to ignore it by initially sticking headphones in. But I felt so guilty.
I took my duvet downstairs and tried to settle Claude on the sofa. It was a sleepless night. Claude was restless and demanded attention.
Getting up to go to university in the morning was hard.
After two awful nights on the sofa, I’d had enough.
Claude refused to sleep back
Heading up to bed, I could hear him oinking and crying
in his cage, so I did the only thing I could do.
I took him up to my bed. He settled instantly on my pillow and never stirred. Slept like a hog!
‘Get that pig out of your bed!’ Mum cried when she first found out.
But he never left. The cheeky swine.
After a year, I had to go from a single bed to a double bed.
Claude seemed to get really massive right under our noses!
By the end of 2016, the vet said he was a whopping 12st.
‘That’s bigger than me!’ I gasped.
No wonder I felt his trotters dig into my back every night.
He was so big, he nearly pushed me off the bed!
But I loved the company – better than any old boyfriend.
Sometimes he’s so warm, I’m bacon under the covers! And, obviously, he’s toilet trained. Claude oinks if he needs the loo. Another good thing, though, he doesn’t smell.
You can forget the happy as pigs image, rolling in mud.
Claude is extremely clean and smells strangely like sweet maple syrup. Despite us never, ever feeding him it!
Apparently, that’s quite common for a domestic pet pig.
An average day for us begins with us waking up at around 9am. It’s super cute when I find Claude’s head resting on the pillow next to mine.
Then we’ll get up and potter downstairs for breakfast together.
Afterwards, I’ll take him out on a harness for a quick walk round the block.
Everyone knows him in our little village.
He poses for pictures and loves strokes from children.
Next, Claude naps while I head to work in a restaurant.
Coming home that evening, my pet piggy will be snuggling up with my dad on the sofa.
He always curls up there – or on the floor near to the radiator.
Claude doesn’t bother mum, or my sister, Jodie, now 17. But he does really bully Jodie’s boyfriend! Pushes him right off the sofa with his trotters!
I dread getting a boyfriend of my own…
But I don’t have any time for love, anyway.
Looking after Claude is like having a baby.
I have a responsibility to feed, water, bathe and exercise him.
My evenings are always completely jam-packed! God forbid I ever leave the house for a night to go out with friends. Claude won’t sleep in my bed alone.
So my parents have to sleep downstairs with him! I can imagine some (if not most) people think I’m pigging crazy.
But, I wouldn’t swap my pet for the world. Claude hogs my bed – and my heart!