Pot-bellied best friends

VegasPigPets helps porkers find homes

Danielle Nadler/ViewPork Chop, a 4-year-old pot-bellied pig, pushes a ball around the yard at the home of owner Crystal KimHan. DANIELLE NADLER/VIEWPork Chop, a 4-year-old pot-bellied pig, eats some scraps at the home of its owner Crystal KimHan on Aug. 9. A year ago, KimHan started VegasPigPets, a nonprofit that works to find homes for abandoned pet pigs. DANIELLE NADLER/VIEWCrystal KimHan feeds her 4-year-old pot-bellied pig, Pork Chop, dinner while at her Spring Valley home on Aug. 9. KimHan says she receives two calls a week from families who either have questions about their pet pigs or who are looking to get rid of them. Advertisement

Crystal KimHan's Spring Valley home is designed more with her animals in mind than humans. Her three birds share half the kitchen, her two desert tortoises burrow in the front yard, her pot-bellied pig, Pork Chop, sleeps in her closet, and her two dogs roam the house freely. Snorts from the pig and conversations between the birds hold as the home's constant undertone.

"They are my family," KimHan said of her animals.

As a girl, she rescued any animal she could find in her Hawaiian neighborhood.

"I was like Dr. Doolittle," she said.

Not much has changed. Her latest animal rescue project is focused on the rising number of pot-bellied pigs that have been abandoned as more and more homes in the valley foreclose.

A year ago, she started the nonprofit VegasPigPets (www.vegaspigpets.org) after she saw that little was being done in Southern Nevada to care for unwanted pigs.

"I was volunteering at a pet sanctuary when I saw that there's such a problem here with people giving up their pigs," said KimHan, who works as an office manager for a mortgage company. "We're turning into an instant gratification, throw-away society."

She receives about two calls a week from families who either have questions about their pet pigs or are looking to get rid of them. In a good month, she can place two pigs. She's driven from Colorado to Utah to Southern California to pick up and drop off pigs.

KimHan is part of a national network of people who help place pigs and also helps find homes for pigs that are at the Nevada Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals No-Kill Animal Sanctuary.

Clark County allows one pig per household, so KimHan keeps pigs in several different foster homes until they are placed. VegasPigPets currently has two pigs that need homes; Nevada SPCA No-Kill Animal Sanctuary has seven abandoned pigs.

"We've run out of places to put them," said Doug Duke, the sanctuary's executive director. "It is scary. We're always worried we're going to get a call with more unwanted pigs."

He added that KimHan's efforts have helped to find qualified owners for a handful of pigs in a time when pig adoptions have all but come to a halt.

"We are all working so hard to find them homes," he said.

Before KimHan adopts a pig out, she requires that the interested family fills out an adoption application, allows a home check and is willing to learn the best way to live with a pet pig.

"About 90 percent of people who buy piglets don't know what to expect," she said. "There's a lot to know."

Pot-bellied pigs have the smarts of a 3 year old, so they need strong leadership, routine and rules. They live about 15 to 20 years and reach between 100 and 200 pounds.

KimHan says the root of the mounting unwanted pig population stems from overbreeding. She has spoken about the issue to breeders in Pahrump who supply most of the valley's piglets and to the Clark County Board of Commissioners.

When it comes to multiplying, pigs are worse than rabbits, she said. They can give birth to eight to 12 piglets at once and can breed every four months.

"This is my fight now," she said. "If I can stop it at the breeding level, then we can reduce the amount of unwanted pigs."

KimHan's goal is for her nonprofit to eventually no longer be needed.

"I know I can't save every animal, but I have saved some," she said. "If everyone can just save one, then that would make a world of difference."

Contact Southeast and Southwest View reporter Danielle Nadler at dnadler@viewnews.com or 224-5524.