The hog, which was named Oinkers, had been purchased by a family friend of Lauren and Mason Price, but soon after began wandering over to the Price's property off Sam Powell Dairy Road, Mrs. Price said this morning. “She wound up staying here, made a bed in the barn with hay.”

Oinkers, who would lay in the flowers and play with the dogs and workers as well as the Price's daughter, Macie, became a minor celebrity. The hog had a mud hole it would wallow in. “Our neighbors would bring their two-year-old granddaughter to see the pig. Friends would bring their kids to see her.”

Oinkers had her own pen and would come in the office. “She was friendly. I don't understand it. They overreacted.”

For some reason Sunday afternoon, while the Price's were at the lake, Oinkers apparently got out of her pen and wandered off Sam Powell Dairy Road to the South Rosemary area. “She had to have got out of her pen. She liked to be around people. It was nothing for her to lay around the shop and watch them work.”

One witness said Oinkers was grazing across from the seafood market at South Rosemary and the only commotion was from patrons around the businesses in the area seeing a pig in the city limits.

“It's got our child upset,” Mrs. Price said. “Macie went to the police department and talked to a magistrate. For 11, she's very mature. She wanted an answer and no one could give her an answer.”

The only plausible reason given the family was police believed Oinkers was getting ready to cross the street “and didn't want a wreck. A picture shows there was no traffic coming toward her. That's no reason to kill a pig. It's not professional. Suppose it had been someone's horse. It's no different.”

Both county animal control and city animal control were called — the county saying it didn't deal with livestock and the city saying it didn't have anything big enough to contain a hog, she said. “Everyone knows we have a pig. It's just a rotten situation. They could have called a farmer.”

Oinkers never got aggressive, Mrs. Price said. “Why would we have a ferocious pig with 80 workers coming to work? People stopping by the office to pick up applications would stop and pet her.”

The only recourse the family is considering right now is to call the animal rights organization People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals for help, she said.

Someone took a video of the matter, which occurred around 2:30 p.m., but so far she has not discovered the who took it. It is believed someone might have told police Oinkers was aggressive.“All they had to do was me or call Mason. I could understand if the pig was going to bite someone. To go and shoot a pig and think it's fine — it's not fine.”