Woody is just too smart for her own good.
Despite being blind and slightly deaf, the 5-year-old kune kune pig has learned how to open the gates at her rural Dunedin home and has been regularly visiting her neighbours to chow down on their vegetable gardens.
Owner Lisa Lindsay said her "escape artist" pig was making her very unpopular with the neighbours, so for Woody’s own good, she had to go.
"Clever Woody worked out she could open the gate and just cruise up our shared driveway into neighbouring properties.
"She’s been eating some of our neighbours’ vege gardens — much to our horror.
"We’ve enjoyed Woody. It’s sad to see her go, but we’ve had to make the hard decision to re-home her, to keep our neighbours’ gardens safe."
Fortunately, within minutes of the thieving pig’s mugshot going up in an online ad, she was snapped up by a new owner in Milburn — no, not the Otago Corrections Facility.
Milburn resident Kym Craig was delighted to add Woody to her farm family, which includes another kune kune called Pepper.
"We’ve got a large farm with sheep, cattle, horses, hens and Pekin ducks, and I wanted to get another kune kune so that Pepper would have a friend of her own kind.
Woody took off squealing down the paddock and went into some trees to hide.
Fortunately, she has an amazing sense of smell, and when Miss Craig took a handful of piggy nuts down to her, she was quick to follow her back to her new shelter.
"She’s come out of her shell now and likes to wander around the paddock.
"Because she’s blind, she bumps into the odd fence at this stage, but she’ll get to know where everything is and learn to navigate around things better."
Miss Craig said Pepper was behind a couple of electric fences for now, to keep her from eating too much.
"Woody’s getting vege scraps — she’s loving that — but Pepper is just getting grass. She’s been on a Jenny Craig diet — she’s quite a big pig."
They had been "talking to each other through the fence, and hopefully they’ll eventually be able to settle down together and become great friends". "
The only thing left to do was to attach a pig-proof lock to the gate, she said.
