Ellie the potbellied pig snuggles up to Wyverne Flatt when he watches TV and sometimes rolls over to let him pet her belly. The 110-pound pig is “family,” Flatt says, an emotional support animal who helped him through a divorce and the death of his mother.
Officials in his upstate village of Canajoharie see it very differently. To them, the pig is a farm animal Flatt is harboring in the village illegally.
The case could soon be headed to a criminal trial. But it has already caught the attention of pig partisans who believe the animals should be respected more as companions instead of just a food source.
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