HUNTINGTON BEACH : Vote Means Owner Won’t Miss Piggy

Lilly the potbellied pig gets to be the little piggy that stays home after the City Council voted unanimously to amend an ordinance allowing residents to keep a miniature potbellied pig as pets.

For Lilly’s owner, Megan Oswald, the City Council action Monday night lifted a load from her shoulders.

She had brought the little pig home from Norco in June before getting City Hall approval. However, under a city ordinance, residents are allowed to keep one rabbit, one duck or one goose. The ordinance doesn’t mention pigs.

Oswald asked officials to amend the ordinance so Lilly could be kept legally.

Oswald said she couldn’t imagine parting with Lilly, no matter what action the officials took. She conceded, though, that one could surmise she was in hog heaven after the council’s vote Monday night.

“She was asleep when I came home last night, and I didn’t want to wake her up,” Oswald said Tuesday. “But I told her this morning, ‘You can stay with us, you’re legal.’

“I talk to her like she’s a little person, though I know she’s not.”

The amended ordinance, which will take effect in mid-September, 30 days after a second reading on Aug. 17, requires miniature potbellied pig owners to get a residential animal permit from the city’s community development office after providing proof that their pet has been sterilized.

Also, the pets have to be registered with a nationally recognized miniature pig association in an effort to ensure that they are, indeed, members of a miniature strain that don’t grow as big as hogs.

Officials also put a 125-pound limit on the pets. Lilly has a long way to go on that score. Nearly 5 months old, she weighs 13 pounds and is 22 inches long and 10 inches high, measured from the shoulders.

Miniature pigs are allowed in 16 other cities in Orange County, including neighboring Newport Beach and Costa Mesa. They are prohibited in Fountain Valley, however.