LR pig owner vows fight to keep pet
300-foot rule, passed after neighbors’ complaints, has her looking at options
It’s not over yet for W.P. Sooie, owner Jyll Latham says.
Latham, the owner of the 2 ½-year-old Vietnamese potbellied pig, said she expects to be ordered to get rid of her pet after city directors approved an ordinance last week saying that all hoofed animals — including the porkers — must be kept at least 300 feet away from the next home or business. The city law, which became effective Tuesday, also limited the number of Vietnamese potbellied pigs to one per household.
For Latham’s neighbors, the ordinance was a victory and an end to what they say is a smelly mess in Latham’s yard. But Latham isn’t going to give up the fight for her pet that easily: the owner of the 70-pound pig is planning to take legal action. Her exact plan wasn’t set last week.
The porker spawned a years-long fight about whether potbellied pigs are livestock or pets.
It began nearly two years ago when Latham moved to the Pennbrook-Clover Hill neighborhood in Little Rock. By then, she’d had her pet for seven months — a purchase she decided to make after researching the city’s animal laws.
But shortly after her move, she got a visit from city animal control officers who took a look at the indoor pig. A second animal control officer later cited Latham, saying that under city statute the pig had to be at least 300 feet away from other homes.
“I’ve lived in Briarwood previous to that,” she said in an interview last week. “I had neighbors on every side, never had any issues. I never tried to make it a secret. What I’ve read specifically gave me the right to have him.”
Latham took her citation to court.
In June 2013, Little Rock District Judge Mark Leverett ruled in her favor but said the city needed to clarify its ordinances, which he said seemed to be in conflict.
Section 6-41 stated that it is unlawful to keep hogs, pigs or swine in the corporate city limits, though it specifically says the law doesn’t apply to Vietnamese potbellied pigs. Statute 6-43 stated that it is illegal to keep cows, goats, horses and other “hoofed” animals within a 300-foot radius of homes.
By the next month, the city’s Animal Services Advisory Board took up the issue, and residents began flocking to one side or the other. One group backed Latham, saying she did her homework and should be allowed to keep her pet.
The other supported Latham’s neighbors, who complained about the pig’s waste and the smell.
In November 2013, the advisory board voted to change the city ordinance to require the 300-foot rule.
For a year, Latham said she’s been waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“Nobody’s ever said, ‘Here’s your permission slip to keep him,’” she said.
The matter went before the Board of Directors on Tuesday, where several neighborhood association presidents and residents were prepared to go to bat.
Ward 4 City Director Brad Cazort first offered up an amendment: a chance to grandfather in all Vietnamese potbellied pigs for owners who register the porkers by Jan. 1 but instate the 300-foot space regulation for all new porkers. None of the other city directors backed Cazort’s amendment.
“I was a minority of one who believed we shouldn’t take the pigs away,” Cazort said later. “We don’t make them do what we do for dogs and cats. I was just hoping there was a little more consideration about taking people’s pets away.”
Pat Gee, president of the Upper Base Line Neighborhood Association, told the city directors that Latham brought a sack of pig feces to the advisory board last year.
“To me, this is a sanitation and health question,” she said. “That’s all it is. I don’t know how the neighborhood dealt with this last summer.”
Neighbors say Latham does not pick up her animal’s waste.
Mollie Irvin, president of the Pennbrook-Clover Hill Neighborhood Association, said the pig defecates right next to a neighbor’s fence.
“All she was asked to do from the very start was to clean up the poop,” she said. “This is why the pig needs to be 300 feet from a dwelling. The pet owner’s responsibility is to clean up the stinking poop.”
Latham said she has a routine. Every other morning — before her shower — the pajama-clad pig owner puts on a pair of cowboy boots and picks up the waste, she said.
“He lives inside,” Latham said. “He goes outside to go to the bathroom. He’s just like my cocker spaniel. He walks on a leash. He wags his tail when he’s happy, knows how to sit on command and give kisses. He sleeps with my 12-year-old son. He’s neutered, microchipped, vaccinated. He’s everything that he really should be.”
Each year, she takes the porker to tailgate at University of Arkansas football games at War Memorial Stadium, Sooie’s favorite day, she said.
Latham says she cleans up, but Irvin said she doesn’t, adding that the waste attracts horseflies.
“She did good all this week but one day,” Irvin said.
Ward 5 City Director Lance Hines said he believed the pig wasn’t the problem.
“It’s at some point the failure of the owner to clean up after the pig and what comes out of the pig,” he said. “It’s the biggest stink here.”
Ward 6 City Director Doris Wright, who is not a pet owner, said she grew up in Chicot County, where she said she’s raised hogs and chickens in the city limits and that there is “an odor.”
“I am a homeowner, and if you’re like me, I had to get through quite a bit to get the home I have,” she said, adding that she has a reasonable right to go outside of her home and for it not to smell like a farm.
“I understand that people have a right to enjoy the peacefulness of their property.”
For Latham, the city’s new ordinance doesn’t make it feasible for Little Rock residents to own a potbellied pig as a pet. But it’s not going to force her to move, she said.
“I’m not laying down and saying, ‘ OK, you can have him now,’” Latham said.
“I’ve had to teach my son that you have to stand up for what you believe in. [Sooie] is part of my family. It’s taken us all through tears. We’re still standing up.”