Lancaster Owner Fights to Get Pig Out of the Pen, Back in the House : Ordinances: Resident had to put her potbellied pets out to pasture, but the city has agreed to look into allowing the animals to live in residential areas.

Padding around a livestock pen in rural Kern County, Black Jack, a 2-year-old Vietnamese potbellied pig, is homesick.

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He squeals in protest when his owner, Laraine Schubert, steps out of the pen and heads home to Lancaster.

Schubert says she would like nothing better than to take the black-haired, 110-pound animal back to her house, where Black Jack and a second pig, Bubbles, grew up.

But there’s a problem: City code enforcement officers ordered Schubert in March to get rid of her pets because it is illegal to keep farm animals in a residential area.

To comply, Schubert moved Black Jack and Bubbles out to a friend’s ranch near Rosamond. She gave Bubbles to the family at the ranch, but she has been working in recent weeks to bring Black Jack back.

To that end, she has urged city officials to change the law, insisting that potbellied pigs should be recognized as house pets. And she has vowed to keep lobbying until the law is changed--and Black Jack can come home.

“I’m not giving up,” she said. “He’s like a child to me.”

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Last week, at Schubert’s request, the Lancaster City Council instructed the city staff to look into the legalization of potbellied pigs and to review the matter with the Planning Commission. The issue then will be returned to the City Council, possibly as early as July.

Although a final vote is months away, council members said they are leaning toward granting pet status to the small pigs.

Mayor Frank Roberts said his niece raises potbellied pigs and boasts that they are brighter than dogs.

Councilman George Runner said he sympathizes with Schubert and other fans of potbellied pigs. “They want to bring home the bacon,” Runner quipped.

Lancaster’s debate is similar to others that have occurred in many Southern California cities since the small pigs, which originated in China, became popular in the United States over the last decade. Initially, the animals cost thousands of dollars and were often purchased by people who merely wanted to show off an exotic pet.

More recently, however, the pigs have proliferated; their value as a status symbol has slipped; their price has dropped to as little as $250, and they have found their way into the homes of less affluent animal lovers.

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These owners argue that their animals are pets, but city laws usually mandate that pigs belong in a barnyard--not a housing tract.

Last year, city officials in Oxnard and Glendale forced owners of potbellied pigs to get rid of their animals. Actor Luke Perry of TV’s “Beverly Hills 90210” had to get a special permit to keep three of the animals at his Tarzana home.

But some cities, including Burbank, Beverly Hills and Monterey Park, allow residents to keep potbellied pigs as pets. In 1992, Los Angeles County supervisors voted to allow the pigs in unincorporated residential areas.

The county law restricts owners to one pig per household. The animal must be spayed or neutered, wear license tags and obey the same leash law that applies to dogs. The pig can stand no taller than 20 inches at the shoulder and weigh no more than 120 pounds. It cannot be any longer than 40 inches from the tip of its snout to the end of its buttocks.

Lancaster officials may use the county law as a starting point in drafting the city’s own potbellied-pig rules. Nearby Palmdale also may change its laws to allow the pigs in residential areas, but the issue is not expected to come before the City Council until late this year.

Jan Carroll, who breeds potbellied pigs at Society Swine, her farm in Leona Valley, hopes these cities will be even more flexible than the county and allow two pigs per household--for socializing, not breeding.

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“Animals are happier when they have somebody to talk to,” she said.

Carroll, who began breeding the pigs more than three years ago, believes they make ideal pets.

“They don’t bark, they don’t have fleas, they don’t shed,” she explained. “They sleep from dusk until dawn. . . . They don’t attack neighbor children. They don’t jump fences and indiscriminately breed like dogs and cats. So you don’t have pound pigs!”

One drawback, she admits, is that pigs do not make good guard animals. “They’re absolutely useless for burglar protection. They’ll show the burglar where the jewels are.”

Before she was cited for keeping Black Jack, Schubert says, she often walked him through her neighborhood without causing any kind of uproar. She believes an acquaintance who held a personal grudge--not one of her neighbors--reported her pigs to the city.

Schubert said she is determined to change the law so that she can walk Black Jack through the neighborhood again. “I’ve always loved pigs,” she said. “I’ve always thought that pigs were cute.”