Lucy is 4 years old, loves ice cream and won't go out in the rain without an umbrella.
She's also a pig. And in the eyes of Mankato city officials, that made her unfit to live in Madeline Exline's home.
"They said she was a swine, and she could only live in a zoo or on a farm," said Exline, who adopted the potbellied pig when it was 6 months old. "Potbellied pigs are bred to be human companions. Lucy would never survive out there."
City officials spotted Lucy, who tips the scales at about 215 pounds, last week, when a photo ran in the local daily newspaper of Exline and her fiancée taking the pig for a walk. The next day, Exline said, she came home from work to find a notice on her door telling her she had 14 days to remove Lucy from the city limits or face a citation.
The news got out on social media, and soon hundreds of people had signed a petition urging the city to reconsider. After a meeting this week with city officials, Exline got the word: Lucy can stay with her, but the days of going for walks are over. Lucy has to stay in the yard or in the house, where she has her own bedroom with a canopied twin mattress to sleep on.
Now, Exline said, she wants to get city ordinances changed to be more accepting of nontraditional pets. Mankato's animal laws ban virtually all pets except cats and dogs.
But for now, the most important battle has been won.
"We get to keep her, so that was really important to me," Exline said Thursday. "I would have crawled through broken glass to keep her."
JOHN REINAN
