Pet hogs Bed-Stuy streets LEASHED PIGGY IS PULLED PORK
Bed-Stuy’s a total pigsty! A portly pet hog has been hoofing it on leash around the Brownstone Brooklyn neighborhood — and residents are squealing over the wild, barnyard-style scene.
The black-and-white spotted “emotional support pig,” named Frannie, struts it up around the nabe on a pink leash. In winter, the highfashion hog even sports sweaters.
“The first time I saw it I was like, ‘Damn, that’s a fat, ugly dog’, then we got a look at it and realized it was a pig,” said neighbor Haili Jackson, 25, who walks her pup on the block.
“Everyone’s in disbelief when they first see the pig,” Jackson said. “She walks the pig as if it’s a dog.”
The “Babe” of Brooklyn is so out of place in the urban jungle, she has literally stopped traffic.
“One time an Amazon driver stopped in the middle of the street and got out of the truck just to get a better look. They couldn’t believe it was a pig on the sidewalk,” Jackson said.
The affable attention hog, who appears to weigh more than 200 pounds, has been living in BedfordStuyvesant since November despite a city law prohibiting pigs from being kept as pets in the Big Apple.
“She’s a registered emotional support animal. It’s OK with my landlord,” said Frannie’s owner — who asked not to be named for fear the city will seize her porcine pal.
She said the pudgy porker is a Juliana pig, which are bred for their spots and known for being intelligent and emotionally intuitive companions.
A health department law forbidding New Yorkers from keeping livestock hasn’t stopped a handful of swine enthusiasts from going hog wild in recent years — and it’s unclear how closely the city enforces the rule.
Then-state Sen. Tony Avella introduced legislation in 2013 to legalize pet pigs weighing under 200 pounds, but the bill never passed.
In 2016, a judge dismissed a pet pig violation in Staten Island after finding that Wilbur, another pig, was an emotional support animal, according to The New York Times.
However, the city got the dismissal overturned and his owner arranged to send him away to a sanctuary in North Carolina.
On Thursday, Frannie took an hour-long stroll through the neighborhood, stopping to root through the soil of trees in sidewalk planters.
When she relieved herself, her owner followed with a dog-waste bag to clean up the mess.
She’s friendly with people but more “skeptical” of dogs, Jackson said, adding, “They hold up traffic when they cross the street. Frannie is very slow.”
But she said surprised onlookers are generally thrilled to catch a glimpse of a swine in the city.
“People are just shocked when they first see it, but not necessarily in a negative way. It’s definitely a conversation piece,” she said.