After all of the excitement of last week's Relay for Life, Porkchop has had plenty of time to chill and "heal" this week. By "heal", I mean that he has been on a serious diet. He ate enough banana chips, grapes, and cucumber pieces, during Relay, to last him for the next few months; and, much to his dismay, his food portions have been pretty limited, since then. Now, he only gets rationed amounts of pot-bellied pig food, and an occasional handful of carrots. Well, of course, he does get a handful of popcorn every night — but not buttered! He is a very unhappy camper — which is why I've left him at home this past week, and not taken him to work with me. It is too hard to resist his cute face and his "I'm HUNGRY!" grunts, when he's right behind me. Plus the little piggie tantrums that he can throw, aren't too easy to deal with!

He is becoming a master of the piggie-tantrum. These "hissy fits" come late at night, while we are asleep, when Porkchop decides that he is hungry. They're not the kind of fits that you can overlook, either. The more you ignore him, the louder and more demanding he gets. He can't see very well, but he has one heck of a nose, and can tell if you are in the bed, even if you try to hide. We've been rudely awakened in the middle of the night, several times this past week, and the only solution is to get up, put a tiny handful of feed in his bowl, fill up his water bowl, and try to go back to sleep. I know — we shouldn't give in, but after a 15-minute fit, something has to give! Well, I did say the only solution, but, sometimes a good belly rub works, too.

One thing my husband, Kenneth, and I talk about, often, is the fact that Porkchop is hard of hearing. We laugh, because every time we talk to him, he grunts back with a small "Huh?" It is so funny. Porkchop will come in the bedroom, at night, get settled in his area, and when we say something to him, he answers back, "Huh?" (Of course, he's not really saying "HUH", but that's our story, and we're sticking to it!)

One benefit of Porkchop's diet, this week, is that he can now jump up the front step of the house. We let him and the dogs out in the side yard, when we get home, and they have a grand time running around and playing. Sometimes, we'll leave them out for a while, and when we go out to bring them back in, they are all standing side-by-side, waiting on the gate to open. I'm not sure if Porkchop thinks he is a pit bulldog, or if they think they are pigs!